MLB Capsules - Overall: Needles have Clemens DNA, steroids; fakery claimed

WASHINGTON (AP) — Prosecutors said Wednesday that needles and cotton balls Roger Clemens’ former trainer says he used to inject the star pitcher tested positive for Clemens’ DNA and anabolic steroids — evidence the defense said was faked.

Assistant U.S. attorney Steven Durham revealed the results during opening arguments in Clemens’ trial on charges of lying to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs. Clemens’ attorney Rusty Hardin responded that he won’t dispute the needles contain Clemens’ DNA and steroids, but accused the trainer Brian McNamee of "mixing" it up.

"He manufactured this stuff," Hardin told jurors. "Roger Clemens’ only crime was having the poor judgment to stay connected with Brian McNamee."

Hardin said steroids would have been "incredibly inconsistent with his career and beliefs that there’s no way he would have done it."

Clemens has said that the only things McNamee ever injected him with were the common local anesthetic lidocaine for his joints and vitamin B-12. But Durham said neither substance was found on the needles or cotton swabbed with his blood stains.

Hardin told the jury that the government is "horribly wrong" in charging his client with perjury, false statements and obstruction of Congress. Clad in a dark suit, Clemens watched silently from the defense table with a clenched jaw.

"There was a rush to judgment on Roger that has made it impossible for him to be fairly heard until he got here," Hardin said in the federal courthouse just a couple blocks from the congressional hearing room where he testified three years ago.

"It’s a fact of life that sometimes when people reach the mountain, there is an unwillingness to give them equal consideration when people come down on them," Hardin said. "And that’s what happened with Roger."

Hardin showed the jury an enlarged photo of the country with all the sites where federal agents investigated the case. He said it involved 103 law enforcement officers, five attorneys, 229 investigation reports and 72 investigation locations across the continental United States, Germany and Puerto Rico.

"They still didn’t find anything to connect him with steroids except Brian McNamee," Hardin said.

Durham, however, said that about 45 witnesses, including several of Clemens’ former teammates, will help make the case that Clemens used anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. When Clemens denied the use under oath before a House panel in 2008, Durham said, "It was false and he knew it was false."

Hardin argued that the government’s case essentially rises and falls with McNamee, who the lawyer said has lied repeatedly. "He’s still lying," Hardin said.

Hardin also said that McNamee lied in a police investigation in Florida in 2001. The trainer was investigated for sexual assault, but Walton had previously instructed Hardin not to discuss specifics of that incident in front of the jury.

Clemens continues to maintain he didn’t use drugs during a 24-season career that set several pitching records. "Roger Clemens has a right to be hurt and mad. He was totally betrayed by a worker he considered a friend," Hardin said.

Hardin tried to fight the perception that Clemens arrogantly insisted on testifying before Congress and thus put himself in this criminal position. He was not subpoenaed to testify and Hardin says it was "technically true that he voluntarily appeared" though under tremendous pressure.

"Roger Clemens, unless he was comatose, always knew the danger of him testifying," Hardin said, pointing out that fellow Major League Baseball player Miguel Tejada was charged with misleading Congress for earlier testimony.

"Did he (Clemens) do it out of arrogance and wanting to go to the Hall of Fame?" Hardin said. "Really? To get into the Hall of Fame? Really? Is that what we’ve come to?"

Hardin showed a photo of the crush of photographers around the witness table as Clemens came into the House hearing room and called it a "scene." Then he showed video of Clemens telling lawmakers that he thinks steroids are wrong and detrimental, but "no matter what we discuss here today, I’m never going to have my named restored."

Hardin objected during Durham’s opening argument when the prosecutor told jurors that Clemens teammates Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch and Mike Stanton will testify they used performance-enhancing drugs to recover from injuries and because the pressure to perform was so high in Major League Baseball.

Walton has expressed concern in pretrial hearings that kind of testimony could lead jurors to consider Clemens guilty by association, and the judge told jurors to disregard Durham’s comments about other players.

Durham said aging baseball players took performance-enhancing drugs to try to keep their jobs in a competitive industry.

"Every year younger players come into the league, and they want to take the jobs of older players," Durham said

Hardin went over Clemens’ many achievements and awards, including seven Cy Young Awards given annually to the best pitcher in the league, and argued that he was great before and after McNamee says he injected him with drugs.

Hardin said hard work was responsible for Clemens’ longevity. He said Clemens was not a natural athlete and while his high school buddies were partying on Friday nights, he was working out.

Durham showed a photo of the yellowing cotton balls, needles and vials turned over by McNamee, who the prosecutor described as "a man that was hand chosen by Mr. Clemens to train him." He said the evidence was tested by two California labs — one that found Clemens’ DNA on the needle and cotton and another that tested them for drugs.

"They found absolutely no B-12, and they found absolutely no lidocaine," Durham said. "What they did find was anabolic steroids."

McNamee says he collected the evidence in 2001, when Clemens became the first pitcher ever to start a season 20-1, led the Yankees to the World Series and won his sixth Cy Young.

Durham said McNamee saved the material — the photo showed the Miller Lite can that McNamee kept it in for more than six years — because he was always skeptical he could trust his star client if steroid allegations ever surfaced and that he would be "thrown under the bus." Durham said McNamee did not initially tell federal agents about it, but only did so after Clemens went on CBS’ "60 Minutes" and smeared his name.

"Then Mr. McNamee considered the bridge completely burned and he knew where he stood," Durham said. He acknowledged that the jury will hear many "negative things" about McNamee, but said they will not ask them to rely on evidence from any one person.

"Everything Mr. McNamee says we intend to corroborate with independent evidence," he said.

Injuries to stars mar 1st half of baseball season

From Derek Jeter to Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer, you could put together an All-Star team just from the guys who have been stuck on the disabled list this season.

If 2010 was the Year of the Pitcher, 2011 might just be the Year of the Injury. David Wright, Buster Posey and Zack Greinke have missed big chunks of time as well, and the rash of injured stars may be one of the biggest reasons that all six division races are so close heading into the unofficial second half of the season.

With so many teams playing short-handed, no one has been able to break away from the pack yet and take command of the pennant race, setting up a 2½-month sprint to the finish.

Jeter spent 21 days on the shelf with a calf injury that slowed his pursuit of 3,000 hits, Pujols stunned everyone by coming back from a broken forearm after just two weeks and Mauer’s seemingly unimpeachable image in his home state of Minnesota took a big hit when he spent most of the first two months of the season rehabbing a mysterious leg injury.

The current disabled list is chock full of stars — Johan Santana, Jon Lester, Roy Oswalt, Carl Crawford, Josh Johnson, Justin Morneau. And many of the trips haven’t been quick ones. Wright has been on the list since May 16 with a stress fracture in his lower back, Morneau is not expected back until mid-August after having neck surgery and Johnson was placed on the 60-day disabled list with right shoulder inflammation on May 17.

Others won’t be back at all this year. Posey, San Francisco’s bright young star catcher, is out after breaking his left leg and straining some ligaments in his left ankle on a home plate collision with Florida’s Scott Cousins on May 25. Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright, Yankees right-hander Joba Chamberlain and Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka have all had surgery on their pitching elbows and are rehabbing for 2012.

It even sent the All-Star managers searching a little bit to fill a few holes created by injuries.

"You are scrambling a bit when you have the number of injuries that we have to deal with before we chose the team," NL manager Bruce Bochy said on Monday.

The Red Sox, Cardinals and Giants have somehow been able to weather a series of significant injuries and sit atop their respective divisions as the second half of the season is about to commence.

Others such as the Twins, who have watched eight regular players hit the DL for extended periods of time, and the Tampa Bay Rays, who saw Evan Longoria miss 26 games with an oblique injury, got off to slow starts in part because of health problems.

With the air-tight nature of the playoff chase — all six division leaders have a cushion of 3½ games or fewer — it is conceivable that the teams who are able to remain the healthiest and avoid any more key injuries will be the ones that advance to the postseason.

How teams choose to address key injuries will also add some intrigue to the trade deadline, which is three weeks away.

Here’s a quick look at the stars, slumps and surprises of the first half of the season:

———

STARS:

—Jose Reyes, SS, New York Mets: Electrifying presence has made the Mets worth watching. Leading NL with .354 average and 15 triples, six more than next closest hitter.

—Matt Kemp, CF, Los Angeles Dodgers: All-around stud. Hitting .313 with 22 homers and 67 RBIs. Been intentionally walked 12 times and leads in many of the stat geeks’ favorite categories, including wins over replacement.

—Jair Jurrjens, RHP, Atlanta Braves: Leads NL in wins (12), ERA (1.87) to keep Braves within striking distance of the juggernaut in Philadelphia.

—Jose Bautista, OF/3B, Toronto Blue Jays: His assault continues. Belted a league-high 31 homers in first half and also hitting .334, second in the league while playing two positions.

—Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, Boston Red Sox: Worth everything that the Red Sox invested. Leading league with .354 average and 77 RBIs with 17 homers.

—Justin Verlander, RHP, Detroit Tigers: With apologies to All-Star starter Jered Weaver, Verlander has been the AL’s best pitcher in the first half. Is 12-5 with a 2.15 ERA and league-leading 147 strikeouts. Also tossed a no-hitter on May 7 at Toronto.

———

SLUMPS:

—Los Angeles Dodgers: Pretty much everything has gone wrong for one of baseball’s tradition-rich franchises. Owner Frank McCourt is in a bitter battle with MLB over control of the team, with the fight spilling into bankruptcy court. And the team has sunk to the bottom of the NL West in Don Mattingly’s first season as manager.

—J.A. Happ, RHP, Houston Astros: Hasn’t recorded a victory since May 14, falling to 3-10 with a 5.63 ERA. Happ is 0-6 with a 5.85 ERA during his skid, and the Astros are winless in those nine starts.

—Adam Dunn, DH, Chicago White Sox: Hitting .160 with nine homers, 34 RBIs and 117 strikeouts in first year of a four-year, $56 million contract. Hitting .031 (2 for 64) against lefties.

—John Lackey, RHP, Boston Red Sox: Has been a massive disappointment since signing a five-year, $82.5 million deal before last season. Is 6-8 with a 6.84 ERA this year.

———

SUPRISES:

—Pittsburgh Pirates: The perennial losers are in the middle of a stunningly successful season, riding CF Andrew McCutchen and closer Joel Hanrahan to a 47-43 record, just one game behind the Cardinals and Brewers in the NL Central.

—Lance Berkman, OF, St. Louis Cardinals: In the middle of a career resurgence, leading NL with 24 homers.

—Curtis Granderson’s power: The New York Yankees’ center fielder struggled in his first year in pinstripes, but has rebounded in a big way this year. His 25 homers at the break are the second-highest total in the majors, behind Bautista.

—The top ace in Philly: When the Phillies unveiled their ‘Four Aces’ starting rotation, Cole Hamels was the last one mentioned. Not now. Hamels has the best ERA (2.32) of any of the four and his 11 wins are tied with Roy Halladay for the team lead.

———

MEMORABLE MOMENTS:

—Jeter’s 3,000th hit: Like everything else in his championship-drenched career, the Yankees shortstop did it in style, hitting a homer to become the 28th player in MLB history to achieve the feat in a five-hit day.

—Brewers acquire K-Rod: Milwaukee GM Doug Melvin made the first big splash of the trade season, announcing just after the All-Star game that he got closer Francisco Rodriguez from the Mets to bolster the bullpen and try to make what is expected to be Prince Fielder’s last year in Milwaukee a memorable one.

—Heath Bell slides into the infield: What an entrance for the Padres reliever in the All-Star game. The big right-hander sprinted nearly 18 mph to the infield and executed a one-knee slide to take a divot out of the infield just before he hit the mound.

—Travis Hafner’s walkoff slam: The Indians slugger, who has rebounded after three mediocre seasons, hit a grand slam in the ninth inning on July 7 to beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-4.

-- Jon Krawczynski

How to improve baseball’s All-Star game? End it.

Absent from the endless discussions about how to improve baseball’s All-Star game was the one that would solve all the problems immediately.

End it.

Seriously. Would anyone other than Bud Selig notice? Or care? And just imagine if the idea gets traction across the sports spectrum. If the pro leagues really want to do something for fans, other than pick their pockets, keep the breaks in midseason and have the players perform community service — e.g., stage sports clinics in their hometowns.

For one thing, they might be better attended than the All-Star game. Almost a fifth of the players named to baseball’s two squads had already voted no with their feet, electing to park them somewhere besides Phoenix on Tuesday night, rendering the National League’s 5-1 win an even more meaningless exercise than usual. And the problem wasn’t just a lack of quantity, but quality.

Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter might be the face of baseball, but his body was already in R&R mode. He sneaked off to Florida with girlfriend Minka Kelly, enraging all those commentators who exhausted their store of superlatives praising him over the weekend, the TV executives at FOX who spent hours dreaming up all those promotional tie-ins, and who knows how many of the 4 million who penciled Jeter into the AL starting lineup.

Surprisingly, the voice of reason in the debate turned out to be the commissioner.

"There isn’t a player that I’m more proud of in the last 15 years than Derek Jeter. He’s played the game the way it should be played. He’s an even greater human being off the field," Selig said. "I think I would have made the same decision that Derek Jeter had."

Of course, this was the same commissioner who called off the 2002 game — and in his home park in Milwaukee, no less — when both teams ran out of relief pitchers after 11 innings in a tie game. Convinced that raising the stakes would prevent future defections and convince the All-Star managers to hold back enough players to prevent a repeat, Selig then hammered out an agreement with the players’ union the following year to award home-field advantage for the World Series to whichever league won the game.

Even so, the list of AL starting pitchers who, like Jeter, passed up a chance to appear — either because they were injured, resting or worked a regular-season game Sunday — read like the first round of everybody’s fantasy draft: Detroit’s Justin Verlander, the Yankees’ CC Sabathia and closer Mariano Rivera, Seattle’s Felix Hernandez, Tampa Bay’s James Shields and Boston’s Jon Lester.

Lester’s Red Sox teammate, Josh Beckett, scheduled as the second AL pitcher, then bowed out during warmups because of a sore knee. Beckett said afterward he would have pitched through the discomfort had it been a regular-season game. Some incentive home field for the World Series turned out to be.

Predictably, the Nationals rode superior pitching and some timely hits to win. They were also better at pretending that it meant something.

"That was part of the message, how important it was for us, and how important the game was: Do it again for the National League champion," said San Francisco and NL manager Bruce Bochy, whose team was awarded home-field advantage in last year’s series.

The only sign that it mattered to the NL players during the game was a goofy slide by the Padres’ Heath Bell. He sprinted out of the bullpen and ripped up a piece of turf the size of a toupee just short of the mound.

"I told some guys I wanted to have fun this All-Star game and needed some ideas, so guys back home kind of said slide on the mound," Bell recalled. "Bochy said before the game that this really counts, so I thought I was not going to do it, but then we were up by four runs."

Even the ballplayers conceded that as far as suspense, that was pretty much it.

"I don’t know if I’d make it. I think I’d slip, ankle, flip, next thing you know," Giants closer Brian Wilson said, "I can’t pitch."

The All-Star game wasn’t always like that. Guys used to treat the game as an honor instead of worrying about getting hurt. The highlights from past games running wall to wall on ESPN proved that. How many times did you see the Pete Rose collision at the plate with Ray Fosse in the 1970 contest? And what are the chances you’ll ever see anything like it in an All-Star game again?

The guess here is never. There’s no need to romanticize the good old days. We like to think the players competed for pride, but even back then, it was about money. The problem, though, is that there’s so much more money on the line these days that the likelihood of any player in any All-Star game would step outside his comfort zone is practically nil.

And it’s not just baseball. The NFL’s Pro Bowl is a glorified flag-football contest and even the NBA and NHL versions, which are entertaining enough as displays of offensive firepower, offer so little defense and intensity that calling them honest games stretches the truth.

So go ahead, Bud, make a statement. Either make attendance at the game mandatory, or just make the midsummer break a vacation. If it ever deserved the label "classic," it’s anything but that these days.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org. Follow him at http://twitter.com/JimLitke

MLB All-Star game draws record-low rating

PHOENIX (AP) — Baseball's All-Star game has drawn a record-low rating for the second straight year.

The National League's 5-1 win Tuesday on Fox earned a 6.9 rating and 12 share. That's down 8 percent from the 7.5/13 in 2010.

Before last year, the previous low was an 8.1/14 in 2005.

Ratings represent the percentage of all households with televisions tuned into a program, and shares represent the percentage of all homes with TVs in use at the time.