Today is a day where we in America celebrate and express our love for our loved ones, regardless of whether it’s through jewelry or chocolate or sacrificing two goats and a dog. And I would like to take this day to celebrate my love for my husband, World Series Champion and Cy Young Award Winner William Roger Clemens, a innocent man that has done nothing wrong that I know about.
It is a travesty, what has happened to our country over these past few days. That a awful lying man like Brian McNamee, a man that me and Roger allowed into our lives, could make up such half-truths about what my Roger did or did not do in regards to utilizing performance enhancing drugs in his capacity as a Major League Baseball player. And that another so-called friend, Andy Pettitte, could do the very same thing. And that the world at large, who could take what this lying man says, and turn it into a witchhunt against what could very well be the best athlete of his or any generation, a sure-fire Hall of Famer, and a fantastic man in general as well. I am ashamed to consider myself an American on days like this. It is only to the credit of Congress that they took time out from their important work for America and the world to give Roger a chance to set his record straight, as well as my record.
I stand by my statement that Roger read to Congress. I read the same article about HGH that McNamee did, and I took the shot when Roger wasn’t home, and Roger said that I should “back off” after that. And I did, and I thank Roger for that. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have taken that short, or I would have taken the shot, but with Roger there to stop me from taking it, because if Roger knew I was taking the shot the moment I was taking the shot, he would have kept me from knowingly taking the shot. I have seen what HGH has done to baseball, and this country, and I don’t want that to happen to me, especially now that I know more, because knowing is half the battle.
And I don’t want this to happen to my Roger, either. My husband’s life is all about baseball. He trains non-stop every single day. He named our children after strikeouts with the first letters of their names. He sleeps in his jock strap that he only washes once a year. It’s all he ever talks about. Baseball, I mean, not his jock strap. That commercial we did, about him playing golf and then getting a call to come back to baseball and me telling him to not play, is a lot like our life, except usually he gets those calls while at home, usually during dinner, and we fight about it in person because he always forgets about his steak when he gets one of those calls, and then he makes it up to me in lots of special ways that only a husband and wife can understand, and then I reheat his dinner. That is what love is all about, not romance and fancy dinners and frilly lingerie. It’s about fights, and forgiveness, and lots of reheated steak.
As Tammy Wynette once sang, you should stand by your man, no matter how often he breaks your heart or disappoints his children or even lies about what he’s going to do every single year so many times you could set a watch to it. For me, my man is called The Rocket, and that’s why I stand by him. I stood by him when he lost all those important games. I stood by him when that awful man in Boston called him fat and washed-up. I even stood by him when he decided to go to Canada. If you can’t stand by your man through the toughest of times, then you shouldn’t be allowed to stand at all, for anything. And if baseball and baseball fans and anyone else can’t stand by my man, then the same goes for them as well, but double.
On this day of Valentine’s, which is also ironically the day pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training, but don’t hold your breath about any reports, we should be celebrating our love for baseball, as well as our lover’s love of baseball. It should not be celebrating by running my husband through the coals of the media’s obsession with past use of drugs that may or may not improve performance when these drugs weren’t even tested for back when people were using them and if they’re caught now using the drugs they’re punished by baseball anyway, so who cares, even if he used them, which he didn’t? All I know is:
1) My husband is innocent, because he says so.
2) I love my husband.
And that is all that matters in this world. And that’s all that should matter to you. Thanks!
Debbie Clemens’ favorite TV show is Ghost Whisperer.