Prosecutors, Clemens team trade barbs in perjury case

WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday promised to tie pitching legend Roger Clemens to steroid use with needles and bloodied cotton balls in their bid to prove he lied to Congress about it.

Prosecutors made their opening salvos against the

seven-time Cy Young Award winner as they seek to prove he lied to Congress in 2008 when he told them he never took anabolic steroids or human growth hormones from 1998 to 2001.

Clemens has repeatedly denied taking the drugs or lying to lawmakers, telling them that his personal trainer and onetime friend, Brian McNamee, had injected him with shots of vitamin B12 and the anesthetic lidocaine instead.

“We will prove that Mr Clemens … used both anabolic steroids and human growth hormones,” U.S. prosecutor Steven Durham told the jury.

“Mr. McNamee saved needles and cotton balls that he used to inject Mr. Clemens—he never completely trusted this man.”

The evidence McNamee saved was sent by prosecutors to private laboratories which tested them and found evidence consistent with Clemens’ DNA on the needles and his actual DNA on the bloodied cotton balls, Durham said.

“They found absolutely no B12 and they found absolutely no lidocaine,” Durham said.

He also tried to blunt an expected defense by Clemens that the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform went beyond its authority by holding hearings on steroids because no legislation was pending.

“The committee was deeply concerned about the effect, the influence that Major League Baseball players and other professional athletes had on younger people,” he said. “The committee’s goal was to protect these younger people from dangerous drugs and dangerous influences.”

Clemens, 48, pitched for four teams during his 24-year career in baseball, including the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Houston Astros. He was one of only four pitchers to strike out more than 4,000 batters.

‘CHASING A FLEA ON AN ELEPHANT’

As prosecutors introduced Clemens to the jury, they showed a photograph of him in a Yankees uniform roaring in triumph with one arm raised, fist clenched, with a vein popping out.

His chief defense lawyer tried to paint a much different picture, steadfastly arguing that Clemens never took the drugs let alone lied to Congress. He also said his client was forced to testify even though they knew his answers.

“Congress called him and basically … dared him to say under oath what he repeatedly said publicly,” said defense attorney Rusty Hardin. “I suggest to you that this is the classic example of chasing a flea on an elephant.”

He posited Clemens’ former friend and trainer McNamee was making everything up about the steroids use by Clemens and had manufactured the evidence the prosecution was seizing on as proof Clemens took the performance-enhancing drugs.

“They have no corroborating evidence of McNamee,” said Clemens’ lawyer Rusty Hardin, adding that despite more than 100 investigators, “they still didn’t have anything to connect him to steroids except Brian McNamee.”

Hardin argued that Clemens won the Cy Young Award both before the period he was accused of taking the drugs, and more importantly in the years afterward .

“Roger Clemens’ only crime was having the poor judgment to stay connected with Brian McNamee,” said Hardin.

The trial is expected to last a month or more, with both sides promising a parade of former players who had taken steroids, as well as Clemens’ wife who took human growth hormones once.