Mindy McCready, Roger Clemens Sensationalism
 Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

We happened to have ESPN on last night when the ticker at the bottom of the screen began saying, Roger Clemens had an "inappropriate" relationship with country singer Mindy McCready.  The story stemmed from a New York Daily News story at midnight on Sunday, which cited unnamed sources and claimed that professional baseball player Roger Clemens carried on a 10 year affair with McCready - beginning when she was a teen and he 28 years old, already married and the father of two kids.  Our first thought was that someone wants to discredit Clemens, who filed a defamation lawsuit after the Mitchell Report listed Roger Clemens as having used Human Growth Hormone (HGH).

Clemens fiercely denied the allegations, which were given to the Mitchell Report by a former trainer of his, Brian McNamee.  Back then, we mused that he seemed innocent.

Now, a couple of months later, headlines are making it look like Clemens is the perpetrator of another crime - infidelity - out of nowhere.  Mindy McCready's mother Gayle Inge said that she thinks the relationship between McCready and Clemens was always one of just friendship.  But the NY Daily News has now added another headline to the mix:  "Mindy McCready Weeps As She Confirms Affair With Roger Clemens."  Which isn't even what she said.

"Mindy McCready is a longtime family friend of Roger Clemens and the Clemens family," said Roger Clemen's attorney, Rusty Hardin.  "Mindy McCready is a longtime family friend of Roger Clemens and the Clemens family.  At no time did Roger engage in any kind of inappropriate or improper relationship with her."

"There's no question in my mind that this is a really filthy smear campaign...to do anything they can to ruin Roger's reputation," Hardin said.  "The New York media has from the beginning been the most hostile toward him.  I don't know why that is.  They are just vicious.  It's like they want to get back at him for him not confessing to what they think he did."

Whether Clemens and McCready's relationship was platonic or not - what business does the Daily News have exploiting Clemens' personal life like that?  He's a pitcher, for chrissake!  Or even Mindy McCready, who has arguably received more media coverage over the years regarding her personal life instead of her music - pounding on her door where she'd barricaded herself in yesterday, making her cry.  God, she's had a rough enough life.  Meanwhile, on ESPN, the ticker is still moving right now, still reporting "decade long affair" over and over again.

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