Clemens shouts, but he doesn’t say what matters

Sunday night, on national television, in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” with no less than Mike Wallace, Roger Clemens laid out his defense strategy for Mitchell Report claims that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

His is not a new strategy. It is frequently used by teenagers when cornered by their parents.

It is called “shout loudly in protest, look offended and talk a lot about things not related to what you are accused of.”

You wonder how much Clemens is paying the lawyers who came up with this. Perhaps they are the same lawyers who advised him not to talk to the Mitchell Commission when given the chance.

You wonder whether they devised this strategy because there is no other, unless he can be convinced to just tell the truth and minimize the damage.

Let’s talk about another strategy. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of Clemens, one of the greatest pitchers ever to play major league baseball.

You have had a wonderful career, made lots of money, have lots of fame and are thinking about pitching maybe one more year and then preparing your Hall of Fame induction speech.

On Dec. 13, along comes this Mitchell Report. You are named, you are innocent and you are furious. So this is what you do:

* You don’t wait three weeks. You call a news conference the next day, or maybe the day after. You need only enough time to read the report and prepare to respond to each and every accusation. You are innocent, after all, so you want everybody to come and ask their questions. You want it open, free-wheeling, immediate. Not sanitized in some TV studio with only one questioner. Not used for a network ratings bonanza and edited for time.

* You jot down all the specifics in the Mitchell Report: Times, places, names, details. If Brian McNamee said he was shooting steroids and HGH into your butt on March 1, 2003, in Houston, you say you were with your wife’s Aunt Bertha in Tucson, visiting family and having dinner. Picked up the check. Have the receipt.

You also saw Bertha’s friends, Tom Smith and Joe Jones, that day. Talked about the World Series. You haven’t called them to ask them to alibi. Call them yourselves. Here are their phone numbers. Here’s Bertha’s.

* Announce that you will take a polygraph test. No maybes. No fears that it won’t work. Ask for a couple of media people to tag along, kind of as pool reporters, and tell them they can stay there while the technician reads the result.

* Tell the reporters at the news conference that, while McNamee was your longtime friend and you have no idea what motivated him to tell Mitchell’s people what he did, you will be filing a defamation lawsuit in the next few days. You don’t care how much it costs. You are among the fortunate citizens of this country who can afford the process that will clear your name.

Give out your lawyers’ phone number and invite reporters to go along to the courthouse when you file the suit. Pledge to attend every minute of McNamee’s deposition hearings and invite him to attend all of yours.

* When you get questions like whether other people did this, or whether you thought that maybe there was a problem in baseball over the excessive use of other drugs, such as Vioxx, be clear that you want to stay on point. Other players and Vioxx are not the issues. Your name and your honesty are.

* Announce you are going to try to play another year, if any team will take you, so that nobody can accuse you of going off and hiding. Demand to be tested once a week and have the results put in a news release.

Demand to pay for the expensive blood test that is the current only measure of HGH. Say that you will try to show that you can still win 10 games, clean, despite your age.

In the interview with Wallace, who read several scenarios from the Mitchell Report, Clemens responded with “Never happened,” and repeatedly with “Never, never, never.” A much more believable response would have been, “Never happened because . . . “ Or, “Couldn’t have happened because . . . “

The defense strategy for the innocent -- instead of shouting, sulking and deflecting -- becomes the most powerful in the world. Truth. That is doubly effective in the most forgiving society in the world.

Ironically, in the very interview in which Clemens sought to shout down his accusers and give credibility to his side of the story, he shot himself in the foot. When he told his story about being injured and arguing with then Yankees Manager Joe Torre to let him pitch a World Series game, he said he ended up taking a painkiller to allow him to do so.

There are several ways to look at that. One is to see the sort of competitive personality that would do anything to be out there. Anything.

It may not be fair to compare athletes, but on the subject of performance-enhancing in sports, there seems to be a consistent mind-set and response.

Before the Athens Olympics, a similarly accused athlete held a news conference in a packed room in New York City. The athlete spoke loudly, looked offended and talked about several things not related to the accusations. At the time, it was convincing. Many reporters left that day, believing.

That athlete’s name was Marion Jones.

Fool me once, but . . .

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.