Clemens' lawyers looking into doping allegations
NEW YORK: Allegations linking seven-time Cy Young award-winner Roger Clemens to doping are being investigated by his lawyers, the superstar pitcher's lead attorney told the New York Times on Wednesday.
Rusty Hardin said his firm had begun an investigation into how the charges came to be made in former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's report on doping in baseball.
Clemens was the most prominent among dozens of players named in the Mitchell Report as having used performance-enhancing drugs, but has denied the allegations.
Mitchell wrote that Clemens' former trainer, Brian McNamee, said he injected Clemens with steroids in 1998 while with the Toronto Blue Jays, and steroids and human growth hormone in 2000 and 2001 while the righthander was with the Yankees.
Clemens, one of the best power pitchers in baseball history, has denied the allegations through his agent, as well as in a video posted on his website.
He is scheduled to appear on the US television news show "60 Minutes" on Sunday, and Hardin said Clemens also planned to meet other media members on the same day.
"We are convinced the conclusions in Mitchell's report are wrong and are investigating the findings ourselves," Hardin told the newspaper.
"At this stage we have uncovered a lot of logical people who we thought Mitchell was going to talk to but never talked to him or his investigators. That's troubling."
AFP
(China Daily 12/28/2007 page24)
