Grievance

I don't like to usually write about overplayed off the field stories, but I've held my tongue for too long with ESPN's Roger Clemens coverage. As I'm sure all readers know, Clemens has been talked about a lot on ESPN in the past month, which usually isn't good for a baseball player to be talked about this much in January. But basically, some guy told Senator George Mitchell that Clemens did steroids, Clemens says he didn't do steroids, and now he's mad at the guy who said he did. The whole thing is very high school, right down to the recorded phone conversation "WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO??!!??" that solved nothing. Anyways, none of this has to do with the point of this post.

Has anyone noticed that when they talk about Clemens on ESPN, they use the SAME set of highlights every single time? It begins with a shot of Roger looking towards third base, then turning his head toward home with this strange look on his face as if he were on steroids or something. Then it shows him striking out some lefty from the Angels with a split fingered fastball. Then it shows him throwing various pitches from various angles on the field. And then finally they switch to footage of him running about in a gym, displaying the vigorous workout routine he was known for before he was accused of taking steroids. And that's it. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I personally think ESPN is covering the hell out of this thing, much like they did with Barry Bonds before and Michael Vick more recently, etc. I really could care less about whether Clemens did steroids or not. I already lost all respect I had for the man after he threw a shattered bat at Mike Piazza in the 2000 World Series. But for goodness sakes, the man has over 3,000 strikeouts in his career, surely they can find a couple others and make a couple different highlight montages. It would go a long way to making SportsCenter seem less stale than it has become.