For the most part, watching Congressmen hack away at Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee was entertaining TV, the ultimate reality show.

But what did it all really mean?

To gain some perspective, Tipsheet surveyed the pundits to see what they thought of Wednesday’s action. Here is a sampling of national opinion:

Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun-Times: “Much to his detriment and shame, all we can conclude is that Clemens was surrounded for years by: (a) a close friend and teammate, Andy Pettitte, who admitted to using HGH and said in sworn testimony that Clemens talked in 1999 or 2000 about his HGH use; (b) a wife, Debbie, who used HGH supplied by McNamee; and (c) a personal trainer, McNamee, who said he actually injected Clemens with steroids and HGH more than the 16 to 21 times that he previously estimated in the Mitchell Report. If we take nothing else from this Congressional hearing, are we really supposed to believe Clemens could be an innocent party when so many people in his inner circle were involved in the steroids/HGH culture? His wife used . . . and he didn’t? Pettitte used . . . and he didn’t? McNamee obtained and distributed the juice . . . but never to his most prized client?”

Mike Lupica, New York Daily News: “You don’t have to like anything about Brian McNamee. He is disgraced and unemployable in baseball. He admitted he has been a liar in his life. He had admitted long before he ever got to this hearing room that he had lied about a lot of things. Sometimes had done it, he says, to protect guys like Clemens he now says he never completely trusted. But if you watched the show yesterday, you know that McNamee did better in the end than Clemens did, a lot better, even on a day when Clemens kept telling us how much he loved baseball and America and his late mother and especially the troops.”

Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN.com: “Friend against friend. Teammate against teammate. That was the essence of what happened during Wednesday’s historic, sometimes inane and occasionally extraordianary hearing conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Distill those four hours and 40 minutes of time into its purest form and you’re left with a single shotglass of truth: Pettitte, in absentia, called Clemens, in so many words, a liar. In return, Clemens politely called Pettitte, in so many words, a nitwit who was mistaken about past conversations between them regarding performance-enhancing substances”

Mike Downey, Chicago Tribune: “He misheard. He misremembers. These might be the buzzwords that emerge from this sorry episode in American sport. The everlasting reputation of one of baseball’s greatest arms will depend largely on the American public’s willingness to believe that one of Clemens’ best friends sold him down the river with information that he must ‘misremember.’ McNamee might be a rat, a snitch, a turncoat, if that’s what you need to tell yourself, but the same goes for another ballplayer, one of Clemens’ best pals?”

Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times: “In an extraordinary moment Wednesday, baseball’s ideals clashed with its reality while sitting less than 15 feet apart in a congressional hearing room on Capitol Hill. In an extraordinarily sad moment, the pusher was more believable than the pitcher. In a 4 1/2 -hour hearing in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, McNamee’s testimony was supported from the first capital letter to the last period. Clemens’ deposition was contradicted from page to page. McNamee calmly withstood criticism of his checkered history while his testimony in baseball’s Mitchell Report was supported by everyone from Clemens’ teammates to Clemens’ former nanny.”

Ken Rosenthal, FoxSports.com: “The committee members, with few exceptions, embarrassed themselves by lining up along party lines, Republicans siding with Clemens, Democrats siding with McNamee — and by extension, their old Democratic colleague, Mitchell. Selig wasn’t present, but his legacy was further damaged; he wanted closure from the Mitchell report and instead opened a Pandora’s box as big as Yankee Stadium. Then there were the principals. McNamee’s reputation, if possible, sunk even lower, and Clemens’ problems went far beyond his invention of the word, “misremembered” to describe Pettitte’s supposedly faulty recollections. Clemens huffed and puffed and played the noble victim. His attorneys applauded him for his willingness to state his case in every possible public forum. But there’s a difference between a man who is telling the truth and one who is convinced that he can’t be caught in a lie.”

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while telemarketer Kelvin Sampson prepares for another NCAA inquisition:

• Any chance that Bruce Weber sends this guy a sympathy card?
• So, how, exactly, did the Billikens score just 20 points against THAT George Washington team earlier this year?
• Wasn’t it a little to see Bryce Husak scored 15 points all by himself against the Colonials?
• Can Mizzou guard J.T. Tiller continue to offset the unhappy demise of Stefhon Hannah?
• Who could have guessed that new Suns center Shaquille O’Neal would need extra time to get extra time to get his legs?

GOOD WILL TONIGHT

Tipsheet owes much gratitude to the gang at Deadspin, the nerve center of the sports blogosphere. Deadspin can be pretty hard on crusty old sportswriters, but we usually have it coming. And the site provides us hours of daily R-rated amusement.

Ringleader Will Leitch, a former Illini correspondent for the Post-Dispatch, drew his experience editing Deadspin to write a new book. He will stage a signing/reading/tour stop at the Barnes & Noble in St. Peters tonight at 7 p.m.

Here is the B&N review of his latest literary effort:

“Most casual sports fans are unaware of Deadspin.com, the irreverent David to ESPN’s Goliath. But Will Leitch’s increasingly popular blog, which delivers ‘sports news without access, favor, or discretion,’ has become a destination for diehard sports fans eager to propose and discuss issues (say, Michael Vick’s herpes?) that mainstream media won’t touch. Leitch, who launched Deadspin in September 2005, describes the genesis of this fan movement away from traditional sports journalism in God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back). If the title sounds long-winded, so are portions of the book, a sometimes witty manifesto infused with personal essays and social commentary. Its 295 pages make it clear that Leitch, who plays in 11 (!) fantasy sports leagues, doesn’t have much respect for professional athletes. ‘Outside of the production of stats, athletes are pointless,’ he writes. That’s certainly questionable. What’s unquestionable, however, is that sports devotees are flocking to Deadspin (844,000 unique visitors per month) and that even casual fans may soon be turning to renegade reporters like Will Leitch for their daily fix.”

MEGAPHONE

“My observations on golf are that mentally it’s a tougher sport than tennis. There are no freebies. In tennis, I’ve been down 6-0, 5-0, 40-love and come back to win. In golf, you can’t do that. You’ve got to be relentless with every shot. It’s tougher to win a tournament.”

Former tennis star Chris Evert, comparing her sport to golf.