No denying our curiosity about Clemens

For some reason, I would like to know whether Roger Clemens used performance enhancers.

Heck, I might even like to know that he did use them.

Anyway, tonight is the night Clemens gets "60 Minutes" of fame. Judging by preliminary reports, infamy will have to wait.

Indications are Clemens told interviewer Mike Wallace he never used steroids, human growth hormones or even Sammy Sosa's stash of Flintstone vitamins.

Instead, Clemens insisted, former trainer Brian McNamee injected him with nothing more than "lidocaine and B-12." Barry Bonds must be snickering all the way to a federal courthouse.

Meanwhile, all I'll be able to think of during Clemens' denials is the 40-year-old film "A Guide for the Married Man."

The flick was terribly sexist. Sad to say, it also was as funny as many believed Borat was, and as entertaining as most believed baseball's Steroids Era was.

So what does this have to do with Clemens?

Only that "Guide's" most memorable scene was dubbed "Deny! Deny! Deny!" in which the wife of Joey Bishop's character catches him in bed with another woman.

The cheater's defense strategy was to begin getting dressed, straightening up the room and saying, "What bed? What girl?"

You know, "Deny! Deny! Deny!"

Which is what Clemens has done in a variety of forums, from his own Web site to CBS airtime. Now he has been invited to Washington to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform later this month. If he accepts, expect him to "Deny! Deny! Deny!" again, albeit under oath this time.

Baseball players can't be believed on this subject any more than Bishop's character could be. Unfortunately, too often they can't be disbelieved either.

Yet, we still want to hear what they have to say, just as we want to know what really happened to JFK and where Elvis is hiding.

Cheating allegations appear to be closing in on Clemens based on a matrix of circumstances: Among them his odd career arc, McNamee's accusations in baseball's Mitchell Report and buddy Andy Pettitte's admitted use of performance enhancers.

Yet Clemens' response still is to "Deny! Deny! Deny!" as in "What needle? What juice?"

Supporters say Clemens is innocent until proven guilty. Detractors believe he doth protest too much. It seems to me both are true: Clemens is innocent until proven guilty and he doth protest too much.

In other words, I don't know whether Clemens cheated, though my suspicions are he did.

Of course, I suspect most baseball players -- most athletes in most sports, for that matter -- cheated at least a little bit to get where they are today.

But why would I be willing to sacrifice a baseball icon like Clemens, reducing him from John Wayne to Joey Bishop, for certainty in this matter?

Maybe because there's something wrong with reaching the point where the ones who have confessed to breaking the rules are considered the admirable ones.

So it wouldn't bother me to find out Clemens had the athletic morals of a marital infidel. It also wouldn't prevent me from voting him into the Hall of Fame.

The Steroids Era was what it was, it still is and we can't "Deny! Deny! Deny!" history.

All we can do is learn enough to avoid a sequel, and maybe that's why I would like to know.