The crack of the gavel, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the sight of overgrown men trying to blaze 100-mph lies wound tighter than a baseball past their star-struck target.
Ahhhh. Must be spring. Must be baseball season.
Today in Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building - where they've argued health care, discussed terrorism and debated immigration - up to 40 members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will listen to tantalizing testimony and try to decipher just who stuck what into whose backside and when.
ESPN gives way to C-SPAN. Must-see TV? You bet.
Just a couple of days before pitchers and catchers report to spring training, Roger Clemens, one of the best pitchers ever, reports to Washington. He'll cock that rocket of a right arm back, momentarily hold it above his shoulder and hurl ... an oath?
Yes, and curiously this is the most anticipated and most important pitch we'll see for several months. This is high drama in the baseball world, and while we know that today will be packed with grandstanding and mock anger, oh, what great theater.
Officially, it's merely a hearing. Actually, the title of record is "The Mitchell Report: The Illegal Use of Steroids in Major League Baseball, Day 2." But that doesn't fit so good in a headline, so let's just call it what it is: "The Trial of the Rocket."
There was a time when I would have bent your ear complaining about Congress butting its elected nose into the sports world's business. I suspect there are more pressing issues. I've softened lately, though. It makes perfect sense for the House committee members to invite Clemens to town, and you better believe they'll be taking notes.
In this inexhaustible election season, Clemens has mounted a campaign better than a candidate for office. The Web site. Private investigators. Statistical analysis. Mike Wallace. A decade-old golf receipt that proved he wasn't partying with Jose Canseco (I'm not making that up). YouTube videos and secretly recorded telephone calls. Plus that high-priced legal team and a week of lobbying and schmoozing legislators in D.C.
You get the feeling that the only tool he hasn't formally used - a garden shovel - will finally be unveiled today. When Clemens swears he'll tell the whole truth and nothing but, he might well be digging his own grave.
You don't lie to Congress. Say the wrong things and you'll be greeted with a criminal investigation that'll make this ongoing trial in the court of public opinion feel like the ball pit at a McDonad's playground. You need a bit more than a wrinkled, yellowed receipt to counter the testimony and evidence brought by a man who's in position to know.
I'm not sure what Clemens can say today that might clear his name, but you bet I'll be listening. Baseball needs this day. While we yakked endlessly about the closure we'd receive from the Mitchell Report, we were forced to admit that after 409 pages, we only had more questions.
And while George Mitchell and Major League Baseball were trying to whisk us quickly into the post-steroid era, it took Congress to put up the yield sign. So while it's certainly not ideal that the House or Senate spends their billable hours contemplating sport, there's a need. There's been a major breach of public trust - in a multibillion-dollar industry - and our sports leagues have proved themselves absolutely incapable of policing themselves. The only reason Congress is involved - and performing the heretofore impossible task of coaxing testimony out of Clemens - is because baseball failed - failed for years, in fact.
Similarly, the NFL botched the Spygate investigation of the New England Patriots. The league closed the case shortly after it was opened and was content for the whole controversy to disappear. And it did - until Sen. Arlen Specter busted it open in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. And now NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is forced to answer questions he'd probably rather not.
As police - as men charged with enforcing the law - the men who run our biggest sports leagues make pretty good politicians. Which is perhaps the ultimate irony because now it's politicians who are holding their feet to the fire.
Sure, I wish our elected representatives were using their time for bigger causes, but I also realize that if they didn't flex their muscle every now and then, our sports world would be the worse for it.
Police need oversight, too. Questions need to be asked. Answers need to be given. And if the right answers aren't given, consequences follow.
While it'd be great if today brought about a clearing of the air - closure at last! - why do I get the feeling that it will only spark another round of questions?
rick.maese@baltsun.com