Paul Lewis: Major league of scandals

We don't know we're born when it comes to sports scandals in this country. Livewire Warriors back Kevin Locke was recently cleared of what was originally touted as a sexual assault.

This week in the US, baseball pitcher Roger Clemens has been on trial over allegations of perjury and steroid use.

The story of that trial and fringe accusations of date rape plus unrelated underage affairs, a fling with golfer John Daly's ex-wife and erectile dysfunction are a taste of the volatile cocktail that is sporting fame and success overseas.

I mention Locke for two reasons - first, sports stars cleared of such things rarely seem to gain as much publicity as when accused. Locke gutsily wanted his name revealed in April after news broke of a Warriors player accused of sexual misconduct.

The incident reportedly took place in his car and involved a woman with whom he'd been socialising earlier. In the end, police said there were no grounds for charges to be laid against Locke. The woman was also not charged. Locke stood up and took the heat; would that other sportspeople and celebrities in trouble do the same - removing suspicion from others when name suppression is a useful shield.

Second, minor transgressions pale into insignificance when the tale of Clemens and those who have played a part in his life is fully unravelled. Clemens was on trial after allegations he lied to a congressional hearing in 2008 about using performance-enhancing drugs. He denied lying but the trial has now been ruled a mistrial after the prosecution showed evidence ruled out by the judge.

But it is not so much the alleged drug-taking and fall of a baseball great that is significant in the Clemens drama - although he stood to be fined up to US$1.5 million ($1.7 million) and go to jail for up to 30 years had he been found guilty of all charges (obstructing a congressional investigation, making false statements and perjury). It is rather sport's seamy underbelly, exposed in the fallout from the accusations against Clemens, now 48 and the renowned former Boston Red Sox pitcher, among others.

The prosecution's main weapon against Clemens was Brian McNamee, his former trainer and alleged injector of Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. McNamee himself has a dubious past. McNamee told former Senator George Mitchell that he had injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs numerous times between 1998 and 2001. McNamee's allegations were the most explosive in Mitchell's 2007 report on steroids in Major League Baseball. Clemens is accused of lying to Congress during a 2008 hearing on the Mitchell Report. Clemens' attorneys insisted that McNamee was the liar.

In the lead-up to the Clemens trials, lawyers on either side went through pre-trial motions, claim and counter-claim that would not be out of place in US lawyer TV shows like LA Law and The Good Wife. Defence attorneys wanted McNamee tightly controlled about what he could and couldn't say. Prosecutors wanted the defence lawyers to be unable to question McNamee about a 2001 sexual assault that they said could "inflame the jury".

McNamee was questioned in 2001 by Florida police as a suspect. He was never charged but admitted lying to police. At the time, McNamee was an assistant coach with the New York Yankees. Police reports said McNamee was seen having sex with a drugged and incoherent woman in a St Petersburg hotel pool. The woman told police she could not remember what happened but did not give McNamee permission to have sex with her. Witnesses reported hearing her saying, "no". A date rape drug was found in her system. McNamee denied sexually assaulting the woman and said he lied to police only to protect the identity of a player who had only helped him get the woman out of the pool.

Clemens' attorneys raised the Florida investigation as evidence that McNamee could not be trusted - and this all played out in public ahead of the Clemens hearing. It doesn't end there, either. None of the following has anything to do with the Clemens trial but it is a sign of what can occur in a sporting environment awash with drugs, cash and the perils of fame.

Clemens was accused, in a New York Daily News story in 2008, of having an affair with country music star Mindy McCready, with allegations that the affair began when she was an underage 15.

She maintained the affair had not started when she was underage; that it lasted more than a decade; ending when Clemens would not leave his wife.

She also said he suffered often from erectile dysfunction (which can be a steroid side-effect). Clemens was named in another story outing his affair with Paulette Dean Daly, now the ex-wife of golf star John Daly.

Baseball and steroids are hardly strangers. The Barry Bonds saga is still going on. Convicted only of obstruction of justice, ace batter Bonds is expected to be sentenced soon but there is also a possible move to re-try him after charges of perjury resulted in a deadlocked jury. Bonds' former trainer decided to do jail time rather than talk to the government about Bonds' alleged drugs use.

However, Bonds' former mistress, Kimberly Bell, told the jury in March that he suffered from shrunken testicles, acne, bloating, hair loss and impotence as a result of anabolic steroid use during their nine-year relationship.

"He said it helped him recover quicker," she said. "The shape, size of his testicles were smaller. He had some trouble keeping an erection."

Bell, whose relationship with Bonds overlapped two marriages, testified that Bonds threatened to cut off her head, burn down a house he helped her buy in Arizona and "cut out [her] breast implants because he paid for them."

Only in America. Though it shouldn't be assumed drugs are not used in New Zealand. In fact, go back 30 years and you'll find the tale of a former sports star here whose party trick was to take out his penis, numbed by the effects of steroid use, and bash it with a beer bottle.

But this country remains free of controversies like those surrounding Clemens and Bonds. Long may it remain so.