Roger Clemens wants us to believe him. He desperately wants us to believe him. He wants us to believe him so much that his newest public relations firm arranged for him to do a telephone interview on an ESPN morning show with Greeny and Goley on the day of publication of a new book detailing Clemens’ alleged use of illegal performance-enhancing substances.

But Clemens shattered his credibility with his own words. The seven-time Cy Young award winner has done that a lot in his attempt to shake the circumstantial evidence from his shoulders that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

In this instance he enlisted his family as a reason why he has never used that bad stuff, that is, steroids.

“Our family has a history of heart conditions,” Clemens said. “My brother had a heart attack in his late 40s. My stepdad died of a heart attack. It would be suicidal for me to even think about taking any of these dangerous drugs.”

Earth to Roger: sorry that your stepfather died of a heart attack, but he doesn’t count. If you went to a doctor and he asked for your family medical history and you told him that your stepfather died of a heart attack, he would not write it on your chart. You see, Roger, your stepfather was not a blood relative. He and his entire family could have had heart trouble and it would have nothing to do with you.

Your brother, yes. Your biological father, yes. Your mother, yes. Other siblings, even half siblings, yes. But stepsiblings, your stepfather’s children, no. And not your stepfather. Do you get it, Roger?

It’s not rocket science, and it’s not Rocket science.

It’s too bad that Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, the hosts of “Mike and Mike in the Morning,” didn’t think of asking Roger about his inclusion of his stepfather in his family heart history. They might actually have had to be listening to Clemens’ comments to ask him about that and not just read questions from a list of questions prepared by their producer.

That’s what interviewing is about – asking questions, listening to the answers and then asking follow-up questions that might be prompted by the subject’s answers. What might Roger have said had Greeny or Goley, which is what the pitcher called them in his blatantly naked attempt to make them all sound like good ole boys, pointed out that his stepfather was not part of his family heart history.

“Uh, well,” Roger might have said, “he was just like my real dad so that counts for something.”  

This was not the first time Clemens put his foot in his mouth. In fact he has become more adept at putting his foot in his mouth than on a pitching rubber.

He made his first mistake when his former trainer, Brian McNamee, initially said that he had injected Clemens with steroids. Instead of issuing a firm but low-key denial, Clemens climbed the highest mountain and shouted it for everyone to hear: He is lying. I never used steroids.

Clemens made so much noise that his voice reached Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., prompting a Congressional committee to summon Clemens and McNamee for a hearing. The hearing led to a grand jury investigation, now underway, to determine who lied. Clemens’ yelping could result in perjury charges, a trial and possibly prison time.

Of course, Clemens could be telling the truth, but few seem to believe him. Were he telling the truth, it’s not likely that he would have had to invoke the memory of his stepfather and his heart problems.  And then he would not have sounded so foolish.

If he is guilty of having used performance-enhancing drugs, Clemens is too proud and too stubborn to admit it. He will very likely follow the misguided example of Pete Rose, who after being declared permanently ineligible in 1989 for gambling denied that he had bet on baseball games.

Evidence gathered in John Dowd’s investigation was overwhelming, but Rose denied the obvious for 15 years, finally and belatedly admitting it in 2004 in his book. By then he had missed his chance to become reinstated and possibly elected to the Hall of Fame.

He had no guarantee, but I have long believed that if he had admitted his wrongdoing immediately he eventually could have gained reinstatement. Fay Vincent, who was the deputy baseball commissioner at the time under Bart Giamatti, basically confirmed that view this week.

“I’m pretty sure if Giamatti had lived and Rose had been contrite and had done things to help baseball, Bart would have been willing to reinstate him,”  Vincent said in a telephone interview this week.

What did Vincent have in mind “If he had traveled for three years at his own expense and talked to kids about the evils of gambling,” Vincent said, “if he had done that and was sincere about it, we would have figured out a way to let him come back.”

Vincent noted that no player on the permanently ineligible list had ever been reinstated, meaning there was no precedent for them to act on with Rose. “We wrestled with that,” Vincent said. “Would we be watering down the sanction? But yes, we probably would have reinstated him.”

Of course, Vincent added, their thinking was predicated on Rose’s “behaving himself.” “What were the odds that he would be contrite and apologetic and that he would counsel kids and do something positive for baseball?”  Vincent asked. “It probably didn’t have a chance of happening.”

Clemens seems headed along the same path Rose took. Deny, deny, deny, and do it loudly, as if volume makes it more believable. Clemens has never tested positive for any banned substance, and the evidence against him has all been produced by McNamee.

Clemens is challenging the trainer’s credibility, but he has yet to explain satisfactorily why McNamee would be telling the truth about his substance link to Andy Pettitte and Chuck Knoblauch but be lying about Clemens. Pettitte and Knoblauch have confirmed McNamee’s information about their use of banned substances.

As he did at the Congressional hearing, Clemens said in the interview with Greeny and Goley that Pettitte “misremembered” a conversation Pettitte said they had about illegal drug use. Maybe it is Clemens who has misremembered his injection sessions with McNamee.