The Roger Clemens-Mindy McCready Affair: Just another Meaningless Incident, Right?

By: D.K. Wilson

Wallace Matthews of Newsday spoke loud and proud for what was and is white, Anglo, racist, misogynist, debauched Western culture, especially that of America. Not all white people - men and the women who abide by its precepts - but the vast majority that applauds Matthews, defends Matthews, produces work that furthers the illness, or has been brainwashed and marches to the wretched beat of a snarling and lecherous Uncle Sam with an arthritic finger pointing at an underage girl: “Uncle Sam Wants You!”

Matthews certainly wasn’t the only fool entranced by the fantasy of a 15-year old Mindy McCready - or any Disney-created Miley Cyrus aka Disney’s Hannah Montana. Or Disney’s Britney Spears. Or Disney’s Christina Aguilera. Or Disney’s Justin Timberlake for all those men who want to get their “little boy thing” on.

Annie Leibovitz followed up her Mandingo Black Man as Ape revue posturing LeBron James in an amalgamation of a World War I poster with the German Kaiser as an ape and the legendary 1933 King Kong-Ann Darrow poster with posing Cyrus with her flopped father Billy Ray Cyrus in a Freudian father-daughter, “feminine Oedipus attitude” conjoining.

And they even published a piece of video for the Cyrus-Cyrus shoot, as if inclusion in the pantheon of You Tube video clips legitimizes Leibovitz’s “Up with Child Sex” May American Vanity Fair montage.

Meantime, it is Tuesday and the ESpinners no longer have the NFL Draft to hide behind, though you can bet they’ll pound away at the lobotomized sheep that only react when they see men with helmets running into each other violently on a green surface. They’ve already broken a Guinness World record for repeating the same clip of twin dweebs Mel Kiper and Todd McShay sitting on either side of Mike Greenberg battling each other for relevancy created for them; a relevancy neither has earned.

Now that ESPN has turned its collective attention to Clemens, they are relying on the same old tricks that made them famous - and swayed a nation of men and the women who love them to believe in their special brand of lying. But like ESPN, Fox Sports, Yahoo, CBS Sports, and Sports Illustrated all held their breath for the Associated Press report to surface before committing a meaningful word to the story.

And by 11 p.m. whichever talking head he is (they all look alike, don’t they?) had attached what can only be a producer-okayed editorial tagline from McCready’s statements on the end of his reporting this latest twist in the Clemens story. The statement is transparently intended to blunt any negative public reaction to that bastion of all that is white and male and American - Roger Clemens:

The central topic in the debate, however, regards his professional life, not his personal life. Repeat after me: the case centers on his professional, not his personal life. The case centers on his professional, not his personal life. The case centers on…

But Matthews’ words are the centerpiece of this base and sickening cultural phenomenon:

I mean, I know the guy’s dishonest, arrogant, a bully, a perpetual teenager and quite probably, a steroid cheat. But a little perspective here, please.

A ballplayer who cheats on his wife? I am shocked. A young girl who is seduced by the “charms” of an older man, said charms consisting mainly that he has his picture on bubblegum cards and an obscenely outsize paycheck? I am double-shocked.

The fact that she was 15 and he 28? Well, that one is a little tougher to get around, but these days, 15 is the new 30. Ask Miley Cyrus and her dad, who had no problem posing for an Annie Leibovitz photo spread with his scantily clad teenage daughter — looking creepily like his girlfriend — which, of course, was the only way that has-been was ever getting into Vanity Fair….

With all due respect to my good friends at the Daily News, aside from the age of his alleged mistress at the time of their meeting, this is one big non-story, important to all of four people on planet Earth — Mindy McCready, the woman in question; Brian McNamee, who is being sued by Clemens for defamation; and Mr. and Mrs. Roger Clemens of Katy, Texas.

And the sad thing is, this craven man is serious. Seduced by the “charms” of an older man, eh? Is that the best excuse for Clemens that Matthews could come with? No. he minimizes statutory rape even further by attempting to reduce perhaps the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball to a man whose life is boiled down to a on bubblegum cards - in other words, not in reality - and the money he makes.

And Matthews is trying to say that if none of the, Clemens on all manner of fountain of youth drugs, revelations had not come to the fore and he was pitching for the New York Yankees Monday and at his advanced age of 45 struck out 14 batters on his way to a victory that Matthews would not be gushing over Roger Clemens in his column like a —— 15-year old girl?

Oh, I forgot, 15 is the new 30. But since when? Since Clemens and McCready was revealed? Because it sure wasn’t for Marcus Dixon, was it?

And like the non-descript talking head at ESPN Matthews tells his audience to do what all good people should do - forget about this story. It means nothing; nothing to you to me to him. It means nothing save for those evil people attempting to impugn the character and make money off the back of one Roger Clemens - and his freaky-deke, HGH-shootin’ breast implant-totin’ wife, Debbie.

No Wallace, you got this one all wrong, boy.

First off, Mindy McCready gave up the goods on Clemens’ ass:

“I cannot refute anything in the story,” a tearful but resolute McCready told the Daily News, which broke the story at midnight Sunday.

So the affair did go down like it was reported, and according to legal experts because statutory rape can be corroborated, this does have the possibility of being used in court:

Q: Is there any possible way for McNamee’s lawyers to succeed in making the McCready allegations relevant to the issues in the Clemens lawsuit?

A: Maybe. If McNamee’s lawyers can prove that an affair actually began when McCready was underage, it would be evidence of the crime of statutory rape. In some courts, evidence of a crime, even if the person was never charged, can be used to show that an individual (Clemens) is a person who cannot and should not be believed. The evidence of the uncharged crime can be used to show that the individual has reduced credibility.

If a judge presiding over the trial of the Clemens lawsuit adopted that theory of the law, it would be the end of Clemens’ lawsuit.

Whether a judge finds that this evidence is permissible is another question, but you would think that the fact that it may be used as evidence is important enough to report. Unless you have a vested interest in protecting the legacy of Roger Clemens.

And as we can see, Mindy McCready certainly does:

“Yes, I have known Roger Clemens for a long time,” McCready said, reading from a prepared statement. “He’s a kind and caring man. He’s also a legendary athlete. The central topic in the debate, however, regards his professional life, not his personal life.

“There are legal matters working their way through the system that have nothing to do with me. From my point of view, that is where the focus should remain.”…

“I have no doubt that Roger has excellent legal representation and he will emerge from this a strong person and a revered athlete,” she said. “I wish him and his family the best.”

But there is one big but here. It is highly suspect that the “sources” are now saying that Clemens and McCready did not have sex that night in Fort Myers, Florida. Nowww the sources are saying that they did not have sex until she moved to Nashville, which would make her 18 years old and of “the age of so-and-so.”:

After the teenage McCready met Clemens at a Fort Myers bar called The Hired Hand, she returned with the Rocket to his hotel room, but there was no sex that night, sources told The News.

It wasn’t until later, after McCready had moved to Nashville and become a country singing star, that the relationship turned intimate.

Until further notice, I’ll believe McCready over “sources.”

However, McCready’s portrayal of Clemens and everyone else who speaks of the man should be noted because of the manner in which everyone in Clemens’ life depicts him; as someone who, at his heart, is a strong, kind, family man. And no one but no one ever associates ‘roid rage with Clemens.

This, despite his apparent guilt for illegally using steroids, despite his affair, despite all the hints that Roger Clemens often acted like a callous ass toward reporters, just happens to be in direct opposition with the depiction of one Barry Bonds.

It is as if no matter how much wrong we wrench from Clemens’ life, he remains somehow angelic, somehow a basically good man. It is Roger Clemens who can walk the halls of Congress under a hail of verbal gun fire in the form of what to other athletes are deadly accusations and curry favor with representatives and every visit is met with a knowing smile, a wink, a nod, and a sure handshake.

And yet with not one reputable source speaking against Barry Bonds, he is condemned as a liar and has essentially been blackballed from Major League Baseball by the teams’ owners.

This cannot occur unless the tawdry face of racism is glaring back at us through these two men and through the people protecting the image of one of these men while actively seeking to destroy the image of the other. It is impossible for Bonds to have no redeeming qualities yet exist for 20 years in the closed fraternity of the clubhouse just as it is impossible for Clemens to be the upright person people portray him as, if so many people have contradicted his tales of innocence and there is a woman who says he is good but also was taken advantage of at the age of 15 by a 28-year old married father of two.

In fact, the gross disparity in the depictions of the two men cannot speak to the racist nature of sportswriting in America any clearer. Racism is here, in our faces and in our reactions to how these men are presented.

And since that huge faction that belongs to white, Anglo, racist, misogynist American culture cannot seem to recognize the painfully obvious racism inherent in the reactions to Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds and the mechanisms in place that demand that they are perceived in a certain way, there is no way racism can be overcome in this country.

No way.

Just ask Wallace Matthews.

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D.K. Wilson is a freelance sports writer. He is better known on the internet as "DWil," and writes for Sports On My Mind.

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3 Comments

  1. What’s wrong with having sex with a 15 year old

    Comment by David Nystrom on April 29, 2008

  2. Adult market magazines using kids in provocative poses? Is that ONLY inappropriate behavior?

    http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/04/leibovitz-and-hanna-montana-teardown.html

    Adult executives know better. They just don

    Comment by PacificGatePost on April 30, 2008

  3. Country music star Mindy McCready of the Roger Clemens story: The other arrests, bankruptcy, federal tax lien, judgments and more

    http://www.webofdeception.com

    Comment by Robert Lewis on May 2, 2008

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