By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer 5 hours, 51 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP)—A Democratic congressman asked the FBI on Wednesday to drop its investigation of Roger Clemens because the pitching great had suffered enough from the probe into steroid use.
Rep. Anthony Weiner, a candidate for New York mayor in 2009, said the FBI is too busy with more important crimes to spend time trying to determine if the ex-Yankees pitcher lied to Congress about taking performance enhancing substances.
“Roger Clemens has been shamed. I think the public record is replete with examples of how he did not likely tell the truth. What is the public benefit of continuing with an FBI investigation?” Weiner said.
Weiner also suggested his fellow lawmakers had gone far enough with inquiries into steroids use by professional athletes and should let professional sports league handle the matter.
“The real incentive to clean up this mess is not a governmental one,” said Weiner, a Mets fan whose district includes parts of Queens and Brooklyn.
The FBI took over the Clemens case after Congress asked the Justice Department to look into Clemens’ testimony at a Feb. 5 deposition and a Feb. 13 hearing. Weiner is not a member of the House Oversight and Government Committee, which heard from Clemens.
Clemens testified he never used steroids or human growth hormone; his former trainer testified he injected Clemens with such substances at least 16 times from 1998 to 2001.
If investigators conclude Clemens lied on critical details, he could face charges of perjury, making false statements or obstruction of justice.
In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Weiner wrote: “Whether or not Roger Clemens may have committed perjury should not compete with real national security threats for the FBI’s time, attention and resources.”
There was no immediate comment from the Justice Department on Wednesday.
Note from the Coach: As everyone knows(and by "everyone", I mean pretty much none of you), the Coach HATES baseball. As far as I'm concerned, baseball players can be crucified for steroids all day long. However, it's about time someone stepped up and said what a ridiculous waste of the FBI's, not to mention Congress', time it is to investigate this stuff. I'm pretty sure there are more pressing matters to look into. Like, why this site hasn't gone gangbusters yet, you know??
He never missed another start – regular season or playoffs – knocking out 275 games in a row.
Take a moment and let that roll around in your head because even though Favre got more than his share of praise from fawning fans and media during his iconic, championship career in Green Bay, his consecutive game streak may be the one accomplishment that is underappreciated.
You’re never supposed to say never, but this is the NFL record that will never be broken.
And while baseball’s Cal Ripken is best known as the iron man for his 2,632 consecutive baseball games played over 17 seasons – another mark that will likely never fall – it pales in comparison to what Favre did. And that isn’t meant to take anything away from Ripken.
Baseball is a grind, a day in, day out test of physical and mental toughness. If what Ripken did was easy, everyone would do it.
But no one was trying to chase Ripken down and break him in half before pounding him through the turf. Ripken wasn’t playing a game that leaves so many of its retirees shuffling around in unrecognizable, splintered bodies and various states of disability.
While everyone acknowledges football is a brutal game, it is even worse than people think.
Every year at the Super Bowl all the big talk radio stations set up remote broadcasts in a convention center, a spot called Radio Row. And every year companies hire ex-players to make the rounds to hawk their products at the end of the interview.
It’s quite a scene, too often a sad one, as you repeatedly watch one-time proud and glorious athletes hobble from one interview to the next, broken down shells of their former selves.
Favre took a historic whipping to start all those games. He hurt his shoulders, knees, ankles, back, various fingers and kept coming back for more. There were untold concussions and, of course, heaven knows how many non-publicized bruises that would have all but maimed a mortal.
None of them stopped him.
Neither did his numerous off-field tragedies, including the death of his father the day before a game, and self-inflicted drama of a personal life that was often as wild as one of his final drive comebacks.
But whatever it was, there was Favre, Sunday after Sunday.
There certainly was (and will be) a dark side to this. There is a price for such glory and Favre paid for it up front with Vicodin and alcohol addiction, a stint in rehab and a million regrets.
And here in the steroid era, where we’ve been trained to be skeptical of the impossible, it would be remiss to not mention that we can only hope that there wasn’t anything else that got him back on that field.
But the frightening part for Favre is what is to come. The concussions have long-term ramifications and the physical ailments haven’t even begun to expose themselves.
In the long run, this may not seem like something worth celebrating.
But for now, it is. For now, it is Favre representing that great American ideal of inner and outer toughness, of a Mississippi kid playing the nation’s game on its most sacred plot of land and just rubbing dirt on all those injuries, on all that anguish. A story of a single millionaire doing what so many working people do, ignoring the pain and doing their job, punching that clock because they’re living paycheck to paycheck and there is no other choice.
This is what Favre wanted. This was the legacy, more than any other, that he sought.
Football is a team game and early on he couldn’t guarantee that Super Bowl title he brought back to Lambeau, but he could eye Ron Jaworski’s record of 116 consecutive quarterback starts and go for it.
He broke it Nov. 7, 1999, an eternity ago in the NFL. It didn’t curb his desire to play every week, didn’t make him reconsider shaking off all that pain, it didn’t stop him from being that blue-collar star.
It’s a crazy record, one that means everything and nothing at the same time. Yes, Green Bay benefited for years from not having to go to a back-up, which, in the era of weak quarterbacks, is almost always a recipe for disaster. But mostly it was an individual mark of guts and luck, of lunacy and legacy. It takes a special kind of guy to even contemplate it.
Favre did more than that. For 16 consecutive years, 275 consecutive games, through hell and back, there was No. 4 taking the field of America’s toughest sport.
Until Tuesday, when Brett Favre decided to simply walk away at last on his own two feet.
