American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime

Before December 2007, Roger Clemens, winner of seven Cy Young awards, had established himself as one of baseball's preeminent players. There had been rumors and accusations of his using illegal performance enhancing drugs such as steroids and human growth hormones, of course, but he vehemently denied it. But when the famous Mitchell Report was published and exposed the truth, it ruined Roger Clemens' reputation and career. Roger Clemens did not really need to use the performance enhancing drugs to enhance his career. In his youth he had natural talent and ability, and he was an extraordinary pitcher, and so he did not need to use the harmful and illegal drugs. Had he never used the drugs, he still would have been considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time. So, the question that baffles baseball fans is why was he even tempted to seek them? "American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime", despite its unwieldy title, is a gripping and engaging non-fiction book that reads like a crime-fiction novel. This is truly an impressive accomplishment of the authors. The four authors, sports investigative reporters of the New York Daily News: Teri Thomson, Nathaniel Vinton, Michael O'Keeffe, and Christian Red, have worked together as a team, not unlike a baseball team at a game, to produce this highly readable book.

It's hard to overestimate the devastation you feel when your childhood idol is destroyed methodically by a team of journalists who combine the careful reporting of Seymour Hersh with the narrative zeal of Buzz Bissinger. I don't know whether to resent the authors or admire them, but all I can say to anyone interested in baseball, steroids, or the ever-evolving idea of American Hubris is: read this book.

To conclude that Roger Clemens took steroids and then lied about it does not take the combined talents of the Daily News' Investigative Team long. But the fascinating part of this book--why I kept reading the whole way through--is how exigently they connect the dots, using small details and lengthy court filings to slowly piece together a damning report. Lively writing makes this read like an easy feature magazine article, but the research is evident on each page.

I don't normally read baseball tell-all books, but I was drawn to this story because Clemens has insisted on maintaining his innocence despite the vast evidence, and I wanted to learn more. What a great decision! The book is excellent. Well written and thoroughly researched, I can't put it down. The characters (many of whom I only knew from media portrayals) really come alive. More than just a retelling of Clemens & McNamee's stories, the book portrays the entire steroid culture in baseball, from the points of view of the players (users and "clean"), suppliers, hangers-on, ownership, Congress, the media... it tells it all. Up there with MoneyBall and the Halberstam books, this is a must-read baseball book. I highly recommend it.

This is a splendid piece of work. The portrait of Clemens that emerges is itself captivating: the writers offer a detailed, patient, wonderfully human account of how the very things that made the man so indisputably great on the hill - willfulness, absolute indomitability - led to his spectacular public undoing. But what is to me even more gripping in the book is the legal and procedural story it unfolds, about precisely how steroids came to be the object of so much political and legal scrutiny in the first place. It's a story that spans more than a decade, criss-crosses the country, is filled astounding intricacy and intrigue, and features a series of vibrant, wonderfully-drawn characters. If you want to the richest backstory, not just on Clemens, but on the history and ongoing place of steroids in baseball, you must get hold of this book.