Former MLB pitcher David Wells tossed a few high hard ones at Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens this past weekend, saying that any player that cheats the game should be banned from baseball after the first offense.

Wells said the home runs that Rodriguez hit during the time he admitted he was on steroids shouldn’t count, including the three he jacked against Wells in 2003. He also questioned Roger Clemens’ veracity on his constant denials that he never juiced, and said all steroids cheats should be banned from baseball after the first offense and have no shot at getting into the Hall of Fame.

“I think that would be great. No 50-game suspension. Ban them right away,” Wells said. “That would stop it in a heartbeat, especially with the money they are giving out today. It would be incredible if they did that. You wouldn’t have to worry about steroids or HGH.”

Why do players abuse steroids? So they can post incredible numbers, assault records, extend their careers, sign big contracts.

“It (stinks) because of the fact that these guys are playing dirty and that’s not fair to the guys who busted their butt all those years to try and stay here and just didn’t have what it took,” Wells said.

If baseball truly wanted to stop player’s use of performance-enhancing drugs, they would take on Wells’ philosophy. No player in their right mind would risk taking steroids if they knew a positive test would result in a lifetime ban from the game. (Well, maybe I shouldn’t suggest that no player would risk using, because I’m sure some nitwit would do it anyway thinking he’d never be caught.)

One thing to note is that MLB wouldn’t be able to make this rule retroactive because if they didn’t think it was important to have a testing policy in place 10 years ago, then they shouldn’t be able to ban a player who admitted using during that time. So guys like A-Rod and Andy Pettitte would be given a free pass for now.

But a lifetime ban would put the responsibility back into the players’ hands – where everything starts anyway. If a player isn’t sure that a supplement or medication will get him banned, he needs to check with a team doctor and have it authorized. That way everyone knows what’s going into these players’ bodies and therefore there wouldn’t be any surprises. And this wouldn’t just help keep the game clean, but it would also show that MLB cares about the players’ long-term health, too. It seems to be a win-win for all parties involved.

- UNCOACHED combined Photoshop with some pictures of Roger Clemens and the end result was spectacular.

- SPORTSbyBROOKS.com has the disturbing story of Bills’ fullback Corey McIntyre, who decided to play the skin flute in front of a 59-year-old woman’s house during his morning bike ride.

- THE LOVE OF SPORTS compiles a list of the top 10 most unique pitching deliveries in baseball.

- DEADSPIN says that Malcolm Gladwell should stick to being wrong about dog trainers and Enron after wrapping up his three-part series with ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons.

- YARDBARKER ranks the NFL’s top 20 players and rationalizes why Cards’ wideout Larry Fitzgerald is the No. 1 player in the league.

In one of his recent articles, New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica hammered Roger Clemens about what the former pitcher said on the “Mike & Mike in the Morning Show” for ESPN Raido.

McNamee is making it up. And Andy Pettitte is still “misremembering” a conversation he and Clemens once had about HGH. And of course the four reporters from the Daily News who have written the book “American Icon” about Clemens – Teri Thompson, Mike O’Keeffe, Christian Red and Nate Vinton – must be making it up for 428 pages, plus footnotes.

Then, referring to “American Icon,” Clemens said, “I’ve seen excerpts from the book and they’re completely false.”

He didn’t say which false excerpts he’d read. But then once you get Clemens off his talking points, almost everything becomes a brain buster.

He even suggested Tuesday that “common sense” had to tell you he wouldn’t take steroids, because of a history of heart trouble in his family. One of the people he cited was a stepfather who died of a heart attack. As if somehow they weren’t just related by marriage, but by blood as well.

So Clemens does add a new wrinkle, that he was worried about what steroids might do to his heart. You wonder how they could ever do as much damage as Clemens has done to himself over the last year and a half. Somehow he still wants that to be everybody else’s fault. The media’s most of all.

He is a little bit like Barry Bonds now, though Bonds does a much better job of keeping his mouth shut, probably because he has much better lawyers than Clemens, starting with Rusty the Lawyer down there in Houston. Bonds is as good as retired. So is Clemens. Bonds can’t hit home runs to change the subject, Clemens can’t strike people out.

What’s absolutely ridiculous about what Clemens said about his family’s history of heart conditions (besides the idiot comment he made about having heart issues because of his stepfather), is that this is his first mention of anything like that. He has never said that it would be “suicidal” of him to use steroids because of his family history – that was the first time since the steroid allegations came out that he referred to any kind of family heart history. Did he actually think that the American public was going to buy that? That’s what he and his crisis coach came up with over the past year?

Lupica’s right – Clemens should take a page out of Bonds’ playbook and just stay out of the public. Clemens does more damage to himself when he opens his mouth.

While appearing on “Mike & Mike in the Morning” on ESPN Radio on Tuesday, Roger Clemens bashed the new book “American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime,” written by four New York Daily News reporters, and once again denied being injected with HGH by former trainer Brian McNamee.

When asked about the physical evidence reportedly handed over by McNamee to federal investigators and whether it had his DNA on it, Clemens said “Impossible, because he’s never given me any [performance-enhancing drugs], it’s as simple as that. He’s never given me HGH or any kind of performance-enhancing drug, so it’s impossible.”

Later in the interview, he said McNamee “… never injected me with HGH or steroids.” Pointing out that his family has a history of heart conditions, Clemens said “It would be suicidal for me to even think about taking any of these dangerous drugs.”

Asked about Pettitte’s testimony that Clemens had told him he used HGH, Clemens repeated a line that he uttered during his congressional testimony: “Andy misremembers.” He said he’d only talked to Pettitte a few times since then because of the legal issues.

“I still consider Andy a friend,” Clemens said.

One of the biggest crocks in Clemens’ testimony is his claim that ‘Andy misremembered.’ I find it incredibly hard to believe that Andy Pettitte (or anyone for that matter) would have a conversation about HGH and not remember that one of his friends and teammates told him that he had taken the drug.

If I was having a beer with a buddy of mine and he confessed that he was taking HGH, had cheated on his girlfriend, had stabbed a panda, had stolen a car or whatever, I would remember the pertinent details. It’s not like that kind of information would go in one ear and out the other, you know?

Clemens is going to get his in the end, because McNamee has cooperated with investigators this entire time. Whether or not Clemens eventually gets busted for lying depends on the evidence, however.

When you put aside the notion that he cheated the game of baseball for his own personal gain, what most people are generally upset about in regards to Barry Bonds and steroids is that he broke Hank Aaron’s home run record. Not only was he allegedly juicing, but in doing so, he also broke one of the most sacred records in all of baseball and most are calling for his name to be scratched from the record books.

In the wake of Manny Ramirez’s 50-game suspension, there’s another topic that should be broached, similar to Bonds’ home run record. Considering Manny hit cleanup for the Red Sox’ two championship teams this decade and also won MVP of Boston’s World Series sweep of the Cardinals in 2004, should the BoSox’ titles be considered tainted if Ramirez was on steroids?

To get the semantics out of the way first, no, Manny didn’t test positive for steroids. He only tested positive for a women’s fertility drug that is often used by athletes and bodybuilders to restore testosterone levels after steroid cycles. To be fair, Ramirez has never tested positive for steroids and therefore anything linking him to PEDs should be considered speculation.

However, if we’re truly being fair, Bonds never tested positive for steroids either. Yet, because his head grew to the size of a small watermelon and his physique went from Bruce Banner to the Incredible Hulk over the course of only a couple of years, it’s safe to say that Bonds was on some kind of human growth hormone and therefore his accomplishments should be questioned and criticized.

And so should the Red Sox’s two World Series titles.

Considering baseball is a team game, some people are going to argue that this Red Sox-tainted World Series topic is nonsense. But we’re not talking about the bullpen catcher taking steroids – we’re talking about the clean up hitter who just so happened to be an integral piece in a team winning two championships.

If all else is equal, then we should question the two Red Sox titles in the same breath as we criticize Bonds’ home run record. Bonds (possibly) cheated in order to attain the Holy Grail of personal accomplishments, while Manny (possibly) cheated in order to attain the Holy Grail of team accomplishments. When you consider that Bonds’ record could someday be broken, but the two Red Sox titles can never be stripped away from them, which dastardly deed was worse?

Don’t get it twisted – this isn’t my plea for the two Red Sox championships to be stricken from the record books. Baseball is a team game and it took 24-plus other players to help Boston win its two World Series titles (as opposed to one super-juiced Barry Bonds to break Hammerin’ Hank’s record). But if the accomplishments of once-thought-to-be Hall of Famers are now in question (i.e. Bonds’ home run record), then why can’t the accomplishments of certain teams be in question as well?

Bonds and the Giants were six outs away from winning a World Series in 2002. In that series (which San Fran inevitably lost to the Angels in seven games), Bonds hit four home runs and had the Giants won, there’s a very good chance that he would have been MVP. If the Giants did win and he took home the MVP award, fans would be screaming about a tainted World Series title because Bonds is the ultimate poster child for steroids in baseball. Sports writers everywhere wouldn’t have been able to utter the words “Giants World Series victory” without fans slamming it because of Bonds’ involvement with steroids and you can’t convince me otherwise.

So why isn’t anyone screaming about two tainted World Series titles for Boston?

To be fair so it doesn’t seem like I’m singling out only Boston, one could argue that the Yankees’ World Series titles in 1999 and 2000 should also be questioned. At least three of their pitchers (Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and Jason Grimsley) have either been implicated, admitted or accused of taking PEDs, so fans could easily apply the tainted tag to their titles, too. (Pettitte was also on the team when they won in 1998.)

And before anyone compares the value of a starting pitcher to a cleanup hitter, don’t forget the impact a pitcher can have in a seven game series in the Fall Classic considering they pitch on only three days rest instead of four like the regular season.

The sad thing is, no matter what side of the fence you’re on in this debate, it’s one that will likely grow if/when more players are suspended. What if Albert Pujols tests positive for PEDs? The Cardinals won in 2006. How about Ryan Howard? The Phillies won in 2008. We could speculate about every slugger on every World Series-winning team in the “steroid era” until we’re blue in the face.

But the overall point is, we’re often so quick to judge Bonds and his achievements (and you could group Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and every other juicer together too for what they accomplished in baseball’s record books), yet it seems like we’re willing to give teams a pass.

Why?

Turns out, Roger Clemens might have been lying all along about not taking performance enhancing drugs. Who would have thought?

Federal authorities investigating Roger Clemens on perjury charges have found performance-enhancing substances on the drug paraphernalia that his former trainer said he used to inject Clemens, according to people briefed on the case.

The discovery of the substances could bolster the claims of the trainer, Brian McNamee, that he used the various items — including syringes, vials and gauze pads — to inject Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone.

If the federal prosecutors move to indict Clemens and seek to use the substances found on the drug paraphernalia as evidence, Clemens’s lawyers are expected to question their authenticity and the chain of custody. Clemens’s lead lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said Monday night that he was not surprised to learn that performance-enhancing substances had been found.

“Duh,” he said with exaggeration. “Do you really think McNamee was going to fabricate this stuff and not make sure there were substances on there? The fact is Roger never used steroids or H.G.H.”

Clemens has been an arrogant S.O.B. the moment his name was linked to banned substances so even though it’s painful to back a weasel like McNamee, I’m rooting for the evidence to prove the Rocket has been lying this entire time. They’re both liars, but Clemens has just been so smug this entire time that it would be nice to see him put in his place. By the looks of the comment above, Clemens’ lawyer is arrogant and smug, too.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Yankees’ third baseman Alex Rodriguez said in a prepared statement that from 2001 to 2003, he and a cousin used a substance available over the counter in the Dominican Republic and that it was known as “boli.”

“I didn’t think they were steroids,” he said. “That’s again part of being young and stupid. It was over the counter. It was pretty simple.”

“All these years I never thought I did anything wrong.”

He said he wasn’t sure how the drug use helped him, but admitted he had more energy.
Rodriguez said he has not used human growth hormone or any other banned drug since then. He refused to identify his cousin.

The three-time AL MVP and baseball’s highest-paid player spoke at the Yankees’ spring training camp 10 days after Sports Illustrated reported that he tested positive in 2003 for a pair of steroids during baseball’s anonymous survey in 2003. Two days after the story broke, Major League Baseball’s highest-paid player acknowledged that fact in an interview with ESPN.

For years, Rodriguez denied using performance-enhancing drugs. But SI reported he was on a list of 104 players who tested positive during baseball’s 2003 survey. SI identified the drugs causing the positive test as Primobolan and testosterone.

“We consulted no one and had no good reason to base that decision,” he said. “It was pretty evident that we didn’t know what we’re doing.”

Hey, A-Rod’s human – he makes mistakes just like everyone else. But I have a hard time fathoming that he injected something into his body that he believed was just an energy booster.

He’s a star athlete making millions of dollars, had a newborn baby on the way at the time and a wife. Forget the fact that he’s an athlete – as a man, shouldn’t he have gone to greater lengths to make sure that he wasn’t doing anything to harm himself or his family? It would be irresponsible if he or anyone else were out doing drugs with a child on the way and a family to take after. Considering he didn’t know what was going into his body, this situation is no different.

He hasn’t tried to hide from this situation and that’s commendable. He is taking his medicine and will continue to do so throughout the rest of his career. But to me, he still seems like he’s trying to snake out of this situation. He still seems like he’s trying to play the role of victim by writing this entire situation off by saying he was young, naïve and stupid.

Either way, as long as he’s not lying again, it’s over. He’s admitted his mistake and that’s more than Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmiero have done.