Swingin'
Roger Clemens has decided to fight the steroid allegations to the very end. So at least you can say he's fighting.

What he's fighting for is anyone's guess. Is Brian McNamee a liar? Yes. But when looking at his testimony yesterday, he was far more convincing than Clemens, who appeared to favor self-rightousness and fire to worthwhile answers.

Does Clemens expect us to believe that:

- His friend Andy Pettitte "misheard" on a conversation as vital as one about steroids? Or that the former, if he had the slightest concern about his understanding of the conversation, would have disclosed it?

- That McNamee would tell the truth about Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch, then lie about Clemens?

- That Clemens' wife used steroids, and he did not?

Clemens seemed to think all he had to do at the hearing was show up, act like a superstar, and get off clean. It worked on some at the hearing, but not enough to sway the popular opinion of the masses.

One of the best writers on this topic has been Mike Lupica. In his latest column on the issue, he gave this nugget:

It all lasted into the early afternoon and when it was over, and McNamee was away from the television cameras, away from the kind of glare in which Clemens has lived his whole major league baseball life, McNamee said this to his attorneys, Earl Ward and Richard Emery: "How did I do?"

Ward said, "Great."

"You think?" McNamee said.

Emery said, "You know why? You gave answers instead of speeches."

Clemens didn't give many answers, and the ones he did give were somewhat hard to believe. He will never again be looked at the same way.

Some will call that a shame, considering how great he was.

I don't share this view. If Clemens broke the law and cheated the game, he's getting exactly what he -- and his legacy -- should.

UPDATE
I do, however, take issue with a few sentences in Lupica's column:
Clemens had every Republican in this room, including a hyena named Dan Burton of Indiana, acting as defense attorneys for him and prosecutors against McNamee.

Was he watching the same hearing I was? Did he watch the questioning of Mark Souder, a congressman from Indiana, who even appeared on ESPN afterwards and basically said he believed Clemens' trainer?

Souder is a Republican. Many of the Republicans did seem to take Clemens' side. But the use of the word "every" makes Lupica's sentence above untrue.