As soon as Roger Clemens denied taking steroids and HGH, I knew he only had one thing to do: Tell Mike Wallace on "60 Minutes" he didn't do it. Not!!
The only thing Clemens could do was immediately file a lawsuit for slander. Sure, the threshold for a public figure to win a slander case like this in the United States is impossible, but at least Clemens could make up some ground.
What he could hope for is that his suit against Major League Baseball would, at its best, be dismissed. I'm not sure baseball would file a motion to dismiss since it might express a lack of confidence in the findings of its own commissioned Mitchell report. But if they did, Clemens could come out a winner. Clemens could also come out a winner if a judge ruled for baseball on a summary judgment.
Clemens response would go something like this: "I sued because I haven't used performance enhancing drugs. Unfortunately, the judge ruled against me because the legal threshold for slander of a public figure is impossibly high. I'd like to reiterate again that I did not use performance enhancing drugs."
Given that his "60 Minutes" response is to mess with that now famous Dennis Green quote (ex-NFL coach), if it was steroids and HGH then "it's not what I thought it was," then we can assume that Clemens is not going to sue.
The big question now: Will Clemens GET sued?
If he spends much of his "60 Minutes" interview destroying the character of his trainer Brian McNamee, then it's possible that McNamee will sue. Remember, McNamee is not a public figure so his slander threshold is, ironically, lower than is it is Clemens.
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