Roger Clemens’s PR strategy
Last night, I watched 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace interview Roger Clemens about his alleged steroid use.
It wasn’t exactly the most thrilling interview I had ever seen and Clemens isn’t exactly eloquent. In response to Wallace’s question about former trainer Brian McNamee injecting him with human growth hormone or steroids, Clemens answered, “My body never changed. If he’s putting that stuff up in my body, if what he’s saying which is totally false, if he’s doing that to me, I should have a third ear coming out of my forehead. I should be pulling tractors with my teeth.” Not exactly the key message I would have written for him.
Nonetheless, Clemens is doing something that no other Major League Baseball player alleged of taking steroids has done: execute a PR strategy. He posted a video denouncing the claims made in the Mitchell Report on steroids and mentioned that he would be interviewed on 60 Minutes in the near future. He did the interview with Wallace who asked him questions like he was lobbing softballs to a 7 year-old. It wasn’t hard for Clemens to hit them out of the park (I had to use a baseball analogy somewhere. Sorry!).
This is in stark contrast to Barry Bonds’s approach to allegations of his own drug use. As you might be aware, Bonds broke baseball’s all-time home run record this past season while under a huge cloud doubt. The rumours about his steroid use had been circling for several months and he was recently indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges for his testimony in the BALCO case. For the most part, Bonds treated reporters with about as much respect as for a garbage can. His relationship with the media was combative even in the best of times. The disdain he has for reporters is palpable in every media interaction I’ve ever seen.
Both of these players will have issues to deal with when their candidacy for baseball’s Hall of Fame comes up. With Clemens’s PR strategy, he will have a much better chance of entering than Bonds or at least an easier time of it. Who knows if Clemens is guilty of taking steroids or not. All I can say is that he cares what baseball fans think and he was pro-active in getting his message out to them.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments
Tags: Brian McNamee, Mitchell report, reputation, Roger Clemens, steroids
joshturner[at]rogers.com
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Nice post. I actually like the “third ear-tractor pulling quote.” The quirkyness of the language make it memeworthy, in my opinion. I bet sports editors across North America are adding that quote today to the folder where they keep track of things to include in year-end stories 12 months from now.
Very nice, Josh. I’m not sure he’s got the best PR strategy (I wouldn’t have waited so long before responding – long enough that people started asking why he wasn’t saying anything), but at least he’s out there on the offensive now.
Monday, Clemens went on the offensive again in a press conference he organized. This time, he seemed to belittle the media for not doing their homework. Pissing off media will not help his cause.
City-TV carried some clips of Clemens’ press conference a few nights back. The clips showed him ranting about how he didn’t care about getting into the hall of fame. The sports anchor also mentioned the bizarre taped telephone conversation with his former trainer that made Clemens sounds more guilty than innocent. The news segment ended with the news and sports anchors commenting that Clemens’ behaviour is something you would expect from someone on steriods. Roid rage. Wow. Talk about a PR strategy that is backfiring.