Nor could Burkett have known that the trainer, Brian McNamee, had saved the syringes he allegedly used to shoot illegal performance enhancers into Clemens more than a dozen times in 1998, 2000, and 2001.
Soon, those needles could do more damage to Clemens than any slugger the Rocket faced.
Clemens, who was indicted Thursday on six counts of lying to Congress, is headed for a showdown in federal court with government lawyers who are all but certain to offer the needles as evidence against him. The prosecutors, who have reportedly matched Clemens’s DNA to the syringes, will try to exploit the evidence to show that Clemens lied to a House committee in 2008 when he denied ever ingesting illegal anabolic steroids or human growth hormone.
“Then it becomes a test of science,’’ Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said yesterday of the needles and DNA evidence. “If there is obvious corroboration that Clemens knew what he was getting in those syringes, it could be significant. But there are a lot of angles in play here.’’
Clemens, facing up to 21 months in prison if convicted of the multiple charges, has rejected a plea offer and vowed to go to trial at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington. The court sits midway between the White House and the Capitol, where Clemens allegedly committed the crimes.
In a surprise phone call yesterday to support the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio Telethon, Clemens declined to discuss the federal case in detail.
“All I’m going to say is that I learned a lot through what happened, and what did not happen,’’ he said. “I don’t know what else to say. We’re going to deal with it and have our day.’’
Asked if he were surprised by the indictment, Clemens said, “It wasn’t really a surprise. I got my eyes opened quite a bit.’’
As for his diminished prospects of reaching the Hall of Fame when he becomes eligible in 2013, Clemens said, “I didn’t play the game to go to the Hall of Fame . . . It’s a tremendous honor. I played the game because I was taking care of my family.’’
