American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime

Book by Thompson Teri Vinton Nathaniel OKeeffe Michael Red

Brian McNamee's memory was pretty good, and one of the things he remembered was sitting by the pool eating a sandwich watching a woman in a peach bikini (with green in it) and board shorts, chasing after one of Roger Clemens's kids at the barbecue at Jose Canseco's house. He asked around and found out she was the nanny for Clemens's kids. “You can get her,” McNamee told Congress during his deposition. “If you want to talk to her, her name was Lily,” McNamee said. “They left on bad terms. She worked for him for 14 years.” Congress couldn't resist. Whether or not Clemens had attended the barbecue-where he supposedly met with a guy about steroids-had become one of the most radical discrepancies between McNamee's sworn statements and those of Clemens.

And so the committee investigators contacted Clemens's lawyers on Friday, February 8, to ask for the nanny's name and contact information, and continued to make similar requests throughout the weekend. It seemed a simple and straightforward appeal. But one day passed, and then another, and Hardin still had failed to produce the requested information.

The woman who'd been the nanny for the Clemens children, Lily Strain, had grown close with the Clemens family during the years she worked for the pitcher and his wife. She had traveled with the clan and had been there when the boys had taken their first steps and learned to ride bikes. She loved them as if they were her own family. Strain had left the job in 2001-not on bad terms, she said, but to spend more time with her children and grandchildren. It wasn't easy to leave the job; it paid well and she found it difficult to be involved in the boys' lives on a part-time basis. Strain decided it would be best if she made a clean break. Debbie had sent flowers when Strain's mother died, and the occasional card or note. Strain appreciated the gestures, but it was easier to keep her distance.

Strain was surprised to get a phone call that Sunday from Roberto, a man she remembered from the years she'd worked for Roger and Debbie. Roberto was an employee of the Clemens family, and he told her that Clemens had an urgent matter to discuss with her. She came to the family's suburban Houston compound that afternoon. It was great to see Roger and Debbie, and to hug the kids she had helped raise. Debbie Clemens's mother, Jan Wilde, was at the house, and so was Debbie's brother, Craig Godfrey. She had missed these people, and it was great to catch up after all those years. Clemens seemed happy to see Strain too, but he had more pressing matters on his mind. He told her that Congress was looking into the allegations about him in the Mitchell Report and that investigators would contact her about a party at Jose Canseco's home. The party, he told her, was in June 1998, right before she went to a luxury resort called the Cheeca Lodge with Deb, Craig, and the boys. Did she remember the trip to the Cheeca Lodge? Strain remembered the trip. She also remembered spending time at the Cansecos' place. She remembered tagging along as Canseco gave Clemens and his family a tour of the home-who would forget a spread like that? She remembered staying at the home with Debbie, Craig, and the kids that evening, but she didn't remember a party.

“While I was there, I know that it wasn't a party, it was just the kids and I and Greg [Craig Godfrey], and we were all in the pool,” Strain would later say. “I would have remembered the party.” There were varying accounts of who was at the party from just about everyone who attended, including those of McNamee, Clemens, Jose and Jessica Canseco; Jose's old friend and former coach, Glenn Dunn; and several Blue Jays players. McNamee remembered that Roger showed up with Debbie after having played golf that morning, Debbie still in her golf clothes. She had been in a foursome at Weston Hills Country Club that included her husband, her brother Craig, and Clemens's friend, James Clodfelter, who was the member at the club and had hosted the group. They had teed off at 8:58 a.m. sharp. McNamee testified about Debbie and Jessica Canseco comparing their breast jobs. He remembered Clemens and Canseco huddled with a “short guy” who looked like a “muscle guy.”

Clemens remembered one thing for sure: He wasn't at any party. He may have stopped by the house after he played golf but he didn't go to a party. “I wasn't at this party that he had. I could have gone by there after a golf outing. But I was not at this party,” he had testified.

Jose Canseco said Clemens was not at the party. His wife, Jessica, couldn't remember. Dunn remembered the barbecue quite vividly and seemed to make the same distinction as Clemens about Clemens's having stopped by the house but not during the party, which lasted about two hours, he said, beginning at about noon. Dunn said the Blue Jays arrived in the team bus and specifically recalled that Clemens was not there. He said, “Roger was not at the barbecue.” He remembered Canseco complained during the function that “Roger was playing golf” and that Clemens came to Canseco's house after golf, but was there only briefly. According to Dunn, by the time Clemens arrived at Canseco's, the team function had ended and the bus carrying the Blue Jays players had already departed for the stadium. Dunn said he spoke with Clemens before Clemens left with Canseco for the stadium. He remembered that Clemens arranged to “have me take his two boys to the game . . . Jose drove Roger to the ballpark . . . I followed in a separate car with my son and Roger's two boys.” Given all these conflicting stories, the committee hoped Strain would be an independent, impartial witness. But they were disappointed.

During her visit at Clemens's house, her former employer reminded Strain that the reason she didn't remember the party was because Clemens was not there-he had been playing golf. That may have been true; she knew Clemens played golf whenever he got the chance. But that was none of her business. She was paid to watch the kids, not monitor his schedule. Clemens again told Strain that the congressional investigators would contact her soon. “Tell the truth,” he urged her. “Don't be afraid.”

By late afternoon that Sunday, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigators had become frustrated and more than a little suspicious. Hardin and Breuer continued to drag their feet in providing the nanny's contact information, and at 5 p.m., a staff member made yet another request for the name and phone number. This time, he asked the lawyers to refrain from speaking to the nanny until the committee had interviewed her. By then, Jim Yarbrough, the investigator from Hardin's office, had already called Strain, not long after she met with Clemens. He also asked Strain about the 1998 visit to the Canseco house, and he urged her to tell the truth when Congress called. Strain was happy to help. “I'm willing to do whatever I can to help, because he treated everybody-he treats everybody like family,” Strain said about Clemens. “and that's why if there's anything that I can do to help, I will.”

Hardin and Breuer finally provided Strain's name to the committee on Monday, February 11, three infuriating days after the investigators requested the contact information. The committee conducted a telephone interview with Strain the next day in which she said, among other things, that she doubted she would be wearing a bikini-that wasn't her style. Waxman was not happy when he learned that Clemens and Yarbrough had gotten to her first.

Hardin was already on Waxman's bad side. On Sunday, The New York Times had quoted Hardin taking shots at BALCO investigator Jeff Novitzky in a story that predicted Novitzky would attend the looming hearing. To Hardin, that was proof that the agent was involved in some kind of conspiracy to railroad Clemens.

“You know what? He does not have a sacred mission from God to mess up everybody's life,” Hardin said of Novitzky, and then added: “I can tell you this. If he ever messes with Roger, Roger will eat his lunch.”

Waxman immediately fired off a letter that called out Hardin for his tough- guy talk. “Under one interpretation it can be seen as an attempt to intimidate a federal law- enforcement official in the performance of his official duties,” Waxman wrote, asking Hardin to clarify the statement. “Given your long service as both a prosecutor and a private attorney, I trust you did not intend your comments to be a signal that there could be adverse repercussions to a federal official.”

Waxman's rebuke left the usually blustery Hardin chastened. “I lost my cool,” he admitted. “It's not a very judicious statement. This is the frustration of what these guys are doing.”

With the hearing just days away, Hardin knew his team was losing this battle on several fronts. He predicted that Clemens would wind up as the target of a federal investigation, just as Miguel Tejada had.

The phone number of the nanny wasn't the only piece of information that the committee had trouble extracting from the Clemens legal team. As of Sunday, February 10, the committee had been unable to persuade Hardin and Breuer to share the MRI results, and was considering using a subpoena to get them.

The MRI report had been referenced in Clemens's 1998 medical records from the Blue Jays (the same records that dealt with the palpable mass on Clemens's ass). But at the time of Clemens's deposition on February 5, the committee hadn't seen it. “There is one outstanding medical record regarding the abscess, which is the MRI report, which we would like to get,” Barnett said during the deposition.

“We got that presented yesterday,” Breuer had answered. “Yesterday evening.”

Now nearly a week had passed, and the Clemens team was still hoarding the document, just as they had withheld t...