Lies, Damn lies, Clemens, and Jail Time?

The New York Times is reporting that the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform asked the Department of Justice to begin a criminal investigation into whether Roger Clemens committed perjury when he testified before it earlier this month. As noted here (and everywhere else), Clemens lied in his testimony and now it appears that Congress may hold him accountable. Clemens's arrogance may finally cost him but an equally interesting question will be whether it costs him part of his baseball legacy. The New York Times hosted a "Who's The Greatest Pitcher of All Time" forum and it was amazing to see how little Clemens's name surfaced. In fact, when it did surface, "untenable" was also in the sentence. Just a few years ago, Clemens was widely considered the best right handed pitcher of the contemporary era (although some people inevitably pointed to Pedro's run from 1997-2002 as evidence of his superseding brilliance). Now, he is a pariah. Someday, when I tell my children about the "great pitchers" I saw pitch (back in the day), I will mention Pedro, Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and, maybe even Jonathan Papelbon and Josh Beckett but I doubt I'll talk much of Clemens despite seeing him pitch in Boston and New York. I'll save Clemens for cautionary stories about the cost of lying.