The Hall of Fame candidacy of MLB great Roger Clemens has just received a presidential endorsement.
“I played Golf yesterday with the Great Roger Clemens and his son, Kacy. Roger Clemens was easily one of the few Greatest Pitchers of All Time, winning 354 Games, the Cy Young Award seven times (A Record, by a lot!), and played in six World Series, winning two! He was second to Nolan Ryan in most strikeouts, and he should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, NOW!” President Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“People think he took drugs, but nothing was proven. He never tested positive, and Roger, from the very beginning, totally denies it. He was just as great before those erroneous charges were leveled at him. That rumor has gone on for years, and there has been no evidence whatsoever that he was a ‘druggie.’”
Trump stressed that he did not want to see Clemens end up in a situation like that of MLB hit king Pete Rose, who was reinstated after his death.
“This is going to be like Pete Rose where, after over 4,000 Hits, they wouldn’t put him in the Hall of Fame until I spoke to the Commissioner, and he promised to do so, but it was essentially a promise not kept because he only ‘opened it up’ when Pete died and, even then, he said that Pete Rose only got into the mix because of DEATH,” Trump wrote. “We are not going to let that happen in the case of Roger Clemens. 354 Wins — Put him in NOW. He and his great family should not be forced to endure this ‘stupidity’ any longer!”
Clemens has 354 MLB wins under his belt, and his 4,672 strikeouts are second all-time.
However, what would typically be a shoo-in first-ballot Hall of Fame record of achievement has been marred by allegations stemming from Clemens’ name being mentioned in the Mitchell Report, the 20-month investigation into steroid and human growth hormone (HGH) abuse in MLB spearheaded by former Democrat Senator George J. Mitchell that was released in 2007.
In February of 2008, Clemens appeared before Congress in an attempt to clear his name. The appearance before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform yielded mixed results in the realm of public opinion, and resulted in legal charges against Clemens, who was charged with was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., and charged with one count of obstruction of Congress, three counts of making false statements, and two counts of perjury.
Clemens was acquitted of all charges in 2012.
While Trump was never convicted of using steroids, Jeff Novitzky, a former investigator on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) trafficking case who also worked with the Mitchell Report investigation, remains convinced that Clemens used steroids.
“We had DNA evidence in the Clemens case, with Clemens’ DNA and an anabolic steroid within a needle that was used to inject him,” he said.
Clemens, who entered Hall of Fame eligibility in 2013, never gained more than 65 percent of the vote in any of his ten years on the ballot.
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