Clemens' trainer saved steroid evidence as "insurance."
5/15/12: WASHINGTON An anxious wife drove Brian McNamee to hold on to evidence of Roger Clemens' steroid use for self-protection, the former trainer testified at the former pitcher's federal perjury trial.
"She kept saying in the midst of a battle royale, 'You're going to go down if something ever happens,' " McNamee said.
So as a measure of insurance, McNamee said, he held on to a beer can filled with a used needle, a syringe and a glass steroid ampule he had fished out of Clemens' recycling bin in 2001. McNamee said he put the waste in a FedEx box and stashed it in a closet at his Queens home.
The waste now forms critical evidence in Clemens' trial: The government contends it contains traces of the former pitching star's DNA and steroids, tying him directly to the drug. And that, prosecutors argue, means he lied in 2008 when he told a congressional committee he had never used the drug.
MORE: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-clemens-trial-20120516,0,2063730.story
The Los Angeles Times article reports McNamee had planned to lie for Clemens until the televised news conference in which Clemens played a recording of a phone conversation in which he and McNamee discussed drug use and the medical history of McNamee's son Brian.
McNamee, furious at the breach of his son's privacy, turned over the needle, syringe, and amplue to his lawyers.
You can't make this stuff up any better. Testimony and physical evidence. Clemens is going to need a bullpen miracle to save his ass.