Yesterday Roger Clemens categorically denied ever taking steroids, despite the evidence laid out against him in the Mitchell Report. Today his former teammate and good friend Andy Pettitte took the opposite tack, and admitted that he used human growth hormone in 2002.

Pettitte said through his agent:

In 2002 I was injured. I had heard that human growth hormone could promote faster healing for my elbow. I felt an obligation to get back to my team as soon as possible. For this reason, and only this reason, for two days I tried human growth hormone. Though it was not against baseball rules, I was not comfortable with what I was doing, so I stopped. This is it - two days out of my life; two days out of my entire career, when I was injured and on the disabled list. I wasn't looking for an edge. I was looking to heal.

This is consistent with the allegations outlined in the Mitchell Report. However, the report does also refer to Pettitte asking trainer Brian McNamee about HGH prior to the 2002 season. McNamee told investigators that he discouraged Pettitte from using HGH at that time, but did help him acquire and inject it during his disabled list stint. There are no further allegations against Pettitte, only accounts of conversations he had with McNamee that seem to suggest Pettitte was nervous about being exposed.

You have to give Pettitte points for directness - he's not denying anything, not threatening anyone with legal action, not trying to attack Brian McNamee's credibility. He's simply admitting what he did and asking everyone to forgive him. I think we should take him at his word that his HGH use did not extend beyond the time period he's indicated, despite that slightly suspicious bit about him asking McNamee for information even before the elbow injury.

So Pettitte, to me, is mostly off-the-hook. Not so for Roger Clemens, whose case I think has been damaged by Pettitte's admission, insofar as Pettitte has confirmed some of what McNamee alleged, giving McNamee more credibility, and making it even harder to believe that he fabricated any of what he said against Clemens. To me, Clemens ought to consider just leaving off his denials, and either admit the whole thing or drop out of sight. It's possible that, in five years when his name comes up for Hall of Fame consideration, there will have been no more proof found against him, and the Mitchell Report allegations will have lost enough of their immediacy that some positive sentiments about him will be allowed to flower anew, sweeping him into the Hall on the second or third ballot (since we know that the self-righteous baseball writers will absolutely not vote anyone in on the first ballot who is the least bit suspicious or otherwise deemed undesirable).