Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds: Notes on the Media-Speak Disparity Between the Two
May 9, 2008
Yesterday on ESPN’s Mike and Mike in the Morning show it was reported that Mindy McCready mother said Roger Clemens did not use performance-enhancing drugs because her daughter perused the former pitcher’s suitcase and didn’t see any syringes or ampules ———- or pictures of swollen butt-cheeks…
Just kidding about that last one.
After the report Mike and Mike co-host Mike Golic flat out laughed at the report. He turned to the other Mike - Greenberg - said something very close to, “I can’t believe it. Like Clemens is going to tell this woman he’s having an affair with that he’s using steroids; like she’s going to know that Roger Clemens used steroids.”
Greenberg laughed and wholeheartedly agreed with Golic.
Thinking about it, it is a crazy thought. Why the hell would Clemens say anything to his girlfriend about using ‘roids? How would his girlfriend know? All in all, it’s a stupid notion and a non-story.
Same as with Barry Bonds and his girlfriend Kimberly Bell, huh?
But wait! Isn’t she the main character in the Mark Fainaru-Wada, Lance Williams authored, “Pulitzer prize nominated” - according to (erroneously) That Buster - Olney, book Game of Shadows?
Know what? Bell sure was that woman in the back pocket of those two writers; the woman who told all. Bell told about Barry explaining how ‘roids helped him after elbow surgery. Bell talked about the ‘roid-induced “man pimples” on Barry’s back. Bell talked about Barry’s mood swang-swangs.
Let’s see now. Mindy McCready has a 10-year affair with Roger Clemens and was in close contact with him as late as 2006, and it is ridiculous for us to entertain the notion that McCready would know anything about Clemens’ alleged performance-enhancing drug use.
But Kimberly Bell, who was Bonds’ “Ms. Thang” for a much, much shorter length of time knew aaaaall about Barry’s ‘roid use, right down to what must have been steroid-related mood swings.
We’re supposed to listen to Bell’s story and take it in with a straight face, tell each other that of course she would know intimate details about Bonds’ steroid abuse - shoot, she was sleeping with the man! - and anxiously await her testimony in court.
Yet we’re supposed to guffaw and tell each other how stupid it is to think that McCready would know anything about Clemens’ steroid abuse.
Maybe it’s because Bell is a Bay-Area graphic artist sophisticate and McCready is a country bumpkin.
Naaaaah.
Maybe it’s because Barry Bonds is an Othello bad guy and Roger Clemens is a John Wayne good guy.
Impossible. Impossible because Roger Clemens is getting the same treatment as Barry Bonds. That’s what the press reporting the two stories tells us.
But the reaction to the two stories could not be more different. And the press is lying when they tell us what a great guy Roger Clemens is, He was known to be as surly and off-putting as Bonds - just not always as direct.
So what could possibly be the difference between the two men that would cause two completely different reactions to the same type of story?
Hmmmmm.
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On another Clemens note, somebody looked long and hard to pull out this one.
Jennifer Sirbaugh, a mother of two children says she knew Mindy McCready way back when. And upon hearing the news that McCready had sex with Clemens when she was 15, she just had to do something about these vicious rumors ——– dag gummit.
So what does the mother living in North Carolina do? Email a reporter in her hometown of Fort Myers, Florida ——- “to vent.” She lives in North Carolina, but emails a reporter at a Florida newspaper —– right. And Fort Myers just so happens to be the spot where Clemens met Mindy McCready while in spring training with the Boston Sed Sox.
The story is printed, of course. Then according to the Houston, Texas Channel 26 Fox News report, Sirbaugh was “stunned” when the news became a “big story.”
Now Sirbaugh is supposed to be a former friend of McCready’s but what does she say to a Fox News reporter?:
“Roger Clemens obviously has a lot of things on his plate right now and the last thing he needs is for someone to think he was with an underage child.
“”My initial thought was that simply that it wasn’t true. I knew that she wasn’t 15. I was upset that, on top of everything else Mr. Clemens is going through, that he was going to be labeled potentially a child molester or a predator or something like that. It just wasn’t true.”
She sure seems concerned for her friend —- Roger Clemens. Then when she does speak about McCready - this is good. No. This is rich: Sirbaugh is claiming McCready is pulling a Miguel Tejada and she’s actually 34 now and not 32:
“I was there when she met him,” Sirbaugh said. “I was 19 and she is only 20 months younger than me. That would have put her at 17. It’s simple math. There’s no way she was 15.
Also, Sirbaugh is convinced nothing inappropriate happened in 1993 when McCready met Clemens at the age of 17.
“All I can tell you is she said at that time, she told me that there was no, no sexual relationship,” Sirbaugh said. “She did claim to be with him overnight at a hotel in Ft. Myers. A friend of mine at the time and I actually went to the hotel and knocked on the door at the penthouse. She answered the door but wouldn’t let us in.
“She returned home the next day and really didn’t have anything to say about it other than some money had been left for her, I assume for her to get home because she didn’t have a vehicle with her and she never really mentioned it again. She did say there had been no sexual relationship at that point.”
Though McCready said the initial story about her relationship with Clemens are true, that she did meet him and have sex with him at age 15, Sirbaugh is going to extricate herself from the woodwork and make statements like this one:
“I just felt that it was wrong for his fans, his family, his children, to have to hear about this story which was just not true.”
Hey Roger, for the right price I’ll tell the press that I watched Brian McNamee offer you steroids and HGH and you smacked the drugs out of his hands and said, “Don’t you ever bring those nasty illegal things around me, my house, my family.” I’ll also say I was there at the bar in fort Myers, too. And not only did you not have sex with her, I’ll say she came on to you and when you found out McCready’s age you said, “Please little girl it’s very sweet that you have a crush on Roger Clemens but Roger Clemens would never do anything to hurt Roger Clemens’ wife and children. And Roger Clemens would never, ever have sex with a 15-year old girl because Roger Clemens is a pillar of the baseball community and Roger Clemens has a lot of youug children looking up to him.”
Would you pay for that, Rog?
Comments
7 Responses to “Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds: Notes on the Media-Speak Disparity Between the Two”
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Clemens is out of control. This is almost starting sound like someones comedy act. The MSM must be taking yoga daily to contort themselves around this story to make Clemens out to be somehow “better” morally than Bonds. I mean my back is cracking just thinking about it.
Mike and Mike appear to be just as dumb, if not more so, than most sports radio types. If Kimberly Bell is somehow a credible witness and source, then so is Mindy McCready.
Yet when McCready goes for her inevitable Playboy spread, no one will be fawning and anticipating what she’ll tell us about the Rocket in the text columns next to obviously airbrushed photos.
Makes you shake your head (or your fist).
Nice piece D-Wil… if the drum is beat long enough than perhaps guys like Costas might not believe that Bonds-Clemens are treated equally… okay… it probably won’t matter
S2N, I remember the days after sports reporters calling Kimberly Bell “a credible witness” but just can’t remember who and didn’t write it down. If you or anyone else knows please tell me…
Not sure I get this. The deal is that Mcready (according to her mother) didn’t see anything suspicious and furthermore it would be kinda dumb for Clemens to tell his fling thing about ‘roid use. Right? There’s just no story here.
So really, when it comes down to it, what are we saying? That some nefarious plotter told/paid Bell to lie about what she’d seen/discussed? I mean, that’s what all this comes down to, doesn’t it? Or are we going with the vengeful jilted lover who’ll say anything to take down her famous assh*le ex-lover story? How do we test Bell’s credibility?
I’m not sure who specifically called her “credible,” but the NYDN’s Michael O’Keeffe treated her words as gospel in a puff piece before the issue came out.
The only thing I can say for the NY Daily News is at least they hate everybody.
Unbelievable. Mike and Mike are assclowns. Clemens stretched out an underage girl and got away with it. And he’s finally getting his comeuppance for the steroids that Barry Bonds forced him to use.
I am shocked and chagrined!!
Charles-
Beyond Bell’s credibility that needs testing, it is the press’ disparate reactions to Bonds and Clemens in similar instances that needs outing.
This one is simple: Bell says she saw “XYZ” and everyone says, of course Bonds told her!
McCready says she saw nothing and the press says, why would Clemens talk to his girlfriend?!
Looking at the two “stories” if you are following the Bonds-Bell logic, the press should ask, “Is McCready - through her mother - trying to backtrack and cover for Clemens? Is McCready’s mother getting paid for her daughter’s silence? As we saw with Kimberly Bell, she had knowledge of Bonds’ habits, then why wouldn’t McCready? And why is McCready’s mother talking instead of McCready?
Or, if you’re going to laugh away the possibility of McCready knowing anything, why would you take the opposite tack with Bell?
Again, instead of queries we get: of course she’s not going to know whether or not Clemens did ‘roids!