Then there's the ever-deepening Clemens saga. Just when it appeared the dispute couldn't get any more sordid, lawyers for Brian McNamee, his former trainer, let slip word that gauze pads and syringes they said had Clemens' blood was turned over to an IRS special agent last month.

''We believe that this is significant corroboration,'' McNamee's lead lawyer, Earl Ward, said the day before his client dropped by Congress to give a sworn deposition.

Clemens lawyer Rusty Hardin laughed at that characterization Thursday, even as his client went door-to-door along those same halls, personally delivering the same message to a select group of lawmakers.

''McNamee really did us a great favor yesterday because it truly revealed what he's out to do -- and that's to destroy Roger,'' Hardin added.

Exactly how Hardin built a lucrative law practice is beyond me, since he's apparently the same guy who called a news conference to defend Clemens and then played a secretly recorded phone conversation in which Clemens bullies a desperate McNamee over and over, but never gets him to change his story. In my mind, that's the second most-damning piece of evidence against Clemens, ranking just ahead of the Mitchell Report and just behind whatever evidence that McNamee, a former cop, saved from all those years ago and turned over to the feds last month.

Hardin is probably right about this much: Whatever McNamee has probably won't rise to the level of admissible evidence in a real court. There are chain-of-custody issues, McNamee's timing is suspicious and the fact he kept those items so long casts doubts on his motivation in the first place.

But while the answers Clemens and McNamee give under oath and before the TV cameras could have legal implications, the real venue will be the court of public opinion. After speaking to Clemens on Thursday, Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings said that court might ultimately be the more important one, though, precisely because it is public.

''While he asked for the meeting, I wanted to make sure that when all the dust settles, that he fully understood that baseball players -- whether they want to be or not -- are role models and that children are looking at them.''

On that telling day eight years ago, right after Tyson stopped smiling, someone in the crowd asked a follow-up question.

''Mike, do you feel pressure to be a role model?''

This time, Tyson paused. It had taken him a lifetime to relearn something he knew as a hungry kid stealing purses in Brooklyn: If you want something bad enough, you do what you have to, not always what you should.

''You don't think I want to do those Wheaties commercials? You don't think I want those endorsement deals? But it's not in me to say 'Yes, sir. No, sir.' It is just not in me.''

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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitkeap.org