Article mentioning Ross
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5430155.html
Campbell: Hey, Rocket, try to top these alibis
By STEVE CAMPBELL
Millions will gather around their televisions on Sunday night to
witness a rare sporting spectacle.
A seven-time Cy Young award winner will give his side of a scandalous
story about a trainer, a needle and a bare backside.
Fifteen days after the release of the Mitchell Report smeared his good
name, Roger Clemens sat down with old friend Mike Wallace to tape a 60
Minutes interview. Clemens' story — and he is sticking to it until
further notice — is this: What trainer Brian McNamee claims were
injections of steroids and human growth hormone were actually lidocaine
and Vitamin B-12.
Maybe Clemens' explanation will be good enough to clear himself in the
court of public opinion and clear his path to the Baseball Hall of
Fame. Unless his delivery is so spellbinding that it makes Jack
Nicholson want to give back an Oscar, though, Clemens will never get
enough style points to make it into the Hall of Fame of sports
explanations and excuses.
The bar of creativity and shamelessness, after all, is higher than Ross
Rebagliati's old associates. And who, pray tell, is Rebagliati? He's a
Canadian snowboarder whom the International Olympic Committee stripped
of a gold medal in 1998 for testing positive for marijuana.
Rebagliati explained that he hadn't smoked the forbidden weed since the
previous April, but he had been exposed to some second-hand smoke
during a New Year's Eve party with friends in Whistler, British
Columbia. An appeal board actually ruled in Rebagliati's favor, making
the unofficial tune of the Nagano Games O' Cannabis.
Earlier this year, Italian soccer player Marco Borriello blamed a
positive drug test on an ointment he had rubbed on a, ahem, private
part because his Argentine model girlfriend had passed on an infection.
Borriello's ultimately unsuccessful spin was the inevitable variation
on a defense Olympian Dennis Mitchell used nearly a decade earlier.
Mitchell explained illegal levels of testosterone in his body on
drinking several bottles of beer and having sex with his wife at least
four times the night before the 1998 test. At his disciplinary hearing,
Mitchell reportedly told the panel, "It was the lady's birthday; she
deserved a treat," which may help explain why USA Track and Field
accepted his defense. The International Association of Athletics
Federations didn't buy it, though, banning him for two years.
Cyclist Tyler Hamilton countered a positive test for blood doping with
an evil-twin defense. With a straight face, Hamilton explained that a
"vanishing twin" died in his mother's womb, leaving with him the
incriminating-looking foreign blood. His defense will live on long
after anybody remembers any of his cycling accomplishments.
Pig meat? Turtle blood?
Spanish discus thrower David Martinez didn't have an evil twin — real
or imagined — to blame for a positive test for anabolic steroids, so he
tried the old infected pig-meat defense. Tennis player Petr Korda tried
passing off a positive drug test after he won the 1998 Australian Open
on eating too much veal, only to have medical science laugh in his
face. Chinese track coach Ma Junren blamed three of his record-setting
runners testing positive for EPO on a supplement containing dried
caterpillars and turtle blood.
Who knew that the key to running faster could be in turtle blood? What
next, elephant blood as a weight-loss aid?
German runner Dieter Baumann claimed a failed steroid test was the
result of someone injecting his toothpaste with the forbidden
enhancers. High jumper Javier Sotomayor blamed a positive cocaine test
on the CIA or an anti-Cuban mafia spiking his food. Uzbekistan track
coach Sergei Voynov explained he had a stockpile of growth hormone to
treat baldness.
British bobsledder Lenny Paul's excuse for a failed doping test?
Tainted spaghetti Bolognese. Not to be outdone, British shotputter Paul
Edwards blamed a positive steroids test on drinking shampoo. Please,
people, read the instructions: Rinse. Repeat. But do not drink.
Ah, for the innocent days of yore when Charles Barkley would try to
defuse a controversy by claiming he was misquoted.
In his autobiography.
When the world was a much more innocent place, Zambian tennis player
Lighton Ndefwayl offered a litany of excuses for losing a match to
Musumba Bwayla. Calling Bwayla "a stupid man and a hopeless player,"
Ndefwayl said he lost "because my jock strap was too tight" and because
his opponent's incessant flatulence while serving caused concentration
lapses.
Who doesn't long for the days when soccer player Darren Barnard was
explaining he'd have to sit out five months because he slipped on puppy
pee? When Brazilian soccer player Ramalho was explaining how he spent
three days sick in bed because he swallowed a suppository intended to
treat a dental condition? When outfielder Marty Cordova had to miss
nearly a week because of a severe sunburn suffered when he fell asleep
at a tanning salon?
An aging matchup
Now we have a 354-game winner appearing on 60 Minutes to tell his side
of baseball's steroid story. We don't know yet if Wallace, at 89, has
enough left on his fastball to challenge Clemens about why he would
receive injections of a local anesthetic and a
readily-available-in-pill-form vitamin. We do know that Wallace asked
if Clemens swears he didn't take any banned substances. We do know that
Clemens swore that he hadn't.
Millions of Americans wait breathlessly to see if Clemens
pinky-promised, too.