Roger Clemens' And Brian McNamee's Curious, Yet Close Relationship

We've already done our fair share of posts about Roger Clemens' press conference tonight, but one of the more interesting things is the relationship between Brian McNamee and Clemens. As the above video of the taped conversation would lead you to believe -- and as Jon Heyman's exclusive interview with McNamee at SI today leads you to believe today as well -- the two men held each other's families in high regard. They were close. McNamee seemed to view Clemens as sort of father figure and role model.

But nothing was more telling about how McNamee and Clemens interacted with each other than Pat Jordan's piece over at Baseball Analysts from yesterday:

But the point of my profile of Mr. Clemens was less about his parsimoniousness than it was his strange relationship with Mr. McNamee. During the dinner at the steakhouse Mr. Clemens asked Mr. McNamee for his permission to have a steak (McNamee nodded) and a baked potato (McNamee nodded again, but added a caveat, "Only dry."). The same scenario played itself out at the Mexican Restaurant. Clemens pointed to an item on the menu and Mr. McNamee either nodded, or shook his head, no.

During the three days I followed Mr. Clemens around Houston, he seemed like a child beholden to the whims of the sour, suspicious, and taciturn McNamee. It seemed as if Mr. Clemens would not do anything to his body, or ingest anything into it that Mr. McNamee hadn't approved. I found it strange that, at 38, Mr. Clemens still had to have someone dictate his diet and workout regimen down to the minutest detail at this late stage of his illustrious career. In fact, Mr. Clemens' devotion to Mr. McNamee's diet and workout routine seemed almost like a spiritual quest that must not be impeded. When Mr. Clemens and Mr. McNamee went on a long run one day and they came across another runner, lying on the ground, in the throes of a heart attack, they called for help. When Mr. Clemens related that story to me, he ended it by saying, "We were having a good run, too."

And here's another couple things gleamed from these stories: McNamee modeled his parenting skills after Roger, McNamee lived in Clemens' poolhouse for a time and they spent countless hours a day training together for a few years. So what does this all mean? Well, there's nothing overly telling, I suppose.

I guess it's just sort of odd that after all these dudes have been through -- think about it, Clemens trusted this guy with just about every step of his day while training-- that they've come to their lawyers lashing out to the media and threatening lawsuits and Congress and taped phone conversations, so on and so forth. It's almost like a messy divorce. Except it's between two dudes that used to pump iron together.

Anyways yeah: this whole thing is just sort of strange.