Reports of an Affair Damage Roger Clemens’ Chances of Winning Defamation Case

Roger Clemens is a Major League Baseball Player who pitches for the New York Yankees. Over the past several years, he’s had a lot of success and two championship rings. Along with this success, he has also managed to stay married to Debra Lynn Godfrey without incident for over 20 years. Sound like a nice life? Well, it did until a recent turn of events. For over a year, Clemens has been accused of using performance enhancing steroids which led him to file a defamation suit against his ex-trainer. Now, more information is leaking out about his character and life. He currently is being accused of having an affair with country artist Mindy McCready. It’s a big ugly mess that has the potential of ruining his defamation law suit.

ACCUSATIONS OF STEROID USE

The initial accusation of Roger Clemens using performance enhancing steroids originated out of a book written by former MLB player Jose Canseco. In Canseco’s book “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big”, he paints a picture of Roger Clemens as an avid steroid user. He alleges that Clemens success after leaving the Red Sox was largely due to his use of this performance-enhancing drug. Of course, Clemens denied this accusation. And, considering Canseco’s reputation, it was easy to believe him. However, the rumors about Clemens using steroids didn’t end there. More people came forward to say he was a steroid user.

Unfortunately, other reports of Roger Clemens use of steroids popped up after Canseco’s book came out. Other MLB players (Jason Grimsley and Andy Pettitte) stated Clemens used steroids. Then, an ex-trainer, Brian McNamee, also testified in the infamous “Mitchell Report” that he injected Clemens several times with steroids. It was a testimony that eventually led Clemens to file a defamation suit against his former trainer. Roger Clemens said he did it in order to reveal the truth.

CLEMENS AFFAIR WITH MINDY MCCREADY

The New York Daily News were the ones to break the story about Roger Clemens having an affair with country artist Mindy McCready. According to this media giant, the sexual relationship between Roger Clemens and Mindy McCready began when he was 28 and she was only 15. In response, Roger Clemens denies having an affair with McCready and only states that he knows her and they have a platonic friendship. It’s been a platonic friendship between an attractive older man and beautiful younger woman that has lasted for almost a decade without any foul play. Hhm? It makes you wonder.

Well, the details of their platonic friendship are not exactly clear. What is clear though is that this new information can really damage his current defamation case against his trainer. It is now apparent that Roger Clemens might not be that great of a guy.

POTENTIAL EFFECT OF THE AFFAIR ON THE DEFAMATION CASE

Surely, by now, Roger Clemens’ has met with his attorneys on what to do next. The idea of him being sexually involved with another woman not only damages his reputation as a family man and an honest man, but could damage his testimony in the pending defamation case. As a matter of fact, it might just make him lose. In my opinion, the best thing for Clemens to do at this point is to settle out of court. It’s the only way to reduce the adverse effects of this new piece of information and make this entire ugly mess go away.

In conclusion, it’ll be interesting to see how Roger Clemens handles the new information about his alleged affair with Mindy McCready. There are only so many skeletons that can fall out of a person’s closet before people start to turn on him. Let’s hope for Clemens’ sake that this is the last one.

Reference:

• www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2008/04/27/2008-04-27_sources_roger_cleme