WASHINGTON — Andy Pettitte rotated his neck. He rubbed his temples. He fidgeted with his gray suit jacket, held up his face with each hand, yawned, sipped a bottle of water and shifted in his chair.
What Pettitte never did yesterday, in this moment he has been dreading for years, was smile.
What he did only once, because he had little choice, was look in Roger Clemens’ direction. “That’s him, in the suit and the greenish tie,” Pettitte said, when asked to point out his former friend and teammate in the court room. Clemens unnecessarily stood up, adding drama to the awkwardness.
For whatever hard feelings exist between these two men — and have no doubt, they do — it’s clear that Pettitte wants no part of sending Clemens to prison. The early read is: The miserable-looking Pettitte — who will return today for a second and likely final day in the U.S. government’s case against Clemens — achieved that non-goal yesterday by gladly and willingly minimizing his testimony.
While Pettitte told U. S. Assistant Attorney Steven Durham of a 1999 or 2000 conversation in which Clemens told him he used human growth hormone, defense attorney Mike Attanasio, in cross-examination, induced Pettitte to agree that the conversation came “in the middle of an intense workout” as the two men were “huffing and puffing.”
In describing the range of conversations two people can have, from “focused” to “passing conversations,” Attanasio asked Pettitte if this talk ranked at the “passing end” of the spectrum.
“I would say so,” Pettitte responded.
Attanasio proposed the conversation was “casual.”
“Right,” Pettitte said.
“In this conversation,” Attanasio continued, “he was not telling you what to do, give you advice.”
“Right,” Pettitte said.
Attanasio planted the seed for the jury to wonder whether Pettitte “misremembered,” just as Clemens told the House Oversight Committee in that 2008 public hearing. Or even better, misheard.
The government’s best weapon to fight back would be to reveal that Pettitte acquired HGH from Brian McNamee, who will say he injected Clemens with illegal performance-enhancing drugs, and that Pettitte shared the details of the conversation with his wife, Laura. District Judge Reggie Walton has closed both doors, however, saying the McNamee connection would be “guilt by association” and the Laura Pettitte testimony “hearsay.” So Durham will have to use his redirect to reassert just how certain Pettitte is of what he heard.
Pettitte, accompanied by two attorneys, told Durham that, while working out with Clemens at Clemens’ home in the 1999-2000 offseason, “Roger had told me that he took HGH. It could help with recovery.” Pettitte recalled no other details of the conversation.
Pettitte admitted to trying HGH in 2002 and 2004, not naming his source for either instance. Pettitte said he began to grow nervous in 2005 when Congress began investigating illegal PED usage by baseball players. That prompted him to approach Clemens, then his Astros teammate, in the kitchen of the team spring training complex in Kissimmee, Fla.
“I walked in and asked him what he would do if [a reporter] asked him about performance-enhancing drugs,” Pettitte said. “He said, ‘What are you talking about?’
“I said, ‘You told me you used HGH.’ He said, ‘I told you my wife Debbie used HGH.’ ”
Pettitte said he felt “a little flustered,” and he thought to himself, “Well, no good asking or talking to him about that now.”
When Durham asked Pettitte if he argued with Clemens about his memory, Pettitte responded, “There was nothing to argue about.” The defense will surely deal today with this second conversation.
In the government’s eyes, this was a story of a good man betrayed by the person he once idolized. To Clemens’ attorneys, this, too, was a good man — one who praised Clemens as a teammate and competitor — who simply got one conversation wrong.
Back and forth it went, nearly three hours total, with Pettitte’s true feelings coming out when Durham asked if he regretted trying HGH.
“I wish I never would’ve,” Pettitte said. “A lot of stuff has been public about me. I’ve had my name out there. I would not want kids to think that it would be right for them to do this.
“If I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Soon, Pettitte will be back in the ultra-challenging American League East. An atmosphere he’ll take, every time, over a courtroom with Clemens.