No Time for Vegans

Our defining moment of Wednesday’s Exercise in Sustained Bloviation, formally known as Day 2 of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s hearing on “The Mitchell Report: the Illegal Use of Steroids in Baseball,” came after one of the congressional gasbags---we didn’t catch the name, but we presume he’s a Democrat, since he was being extra-mean to Seven-Time Cy Young Award Winner R. Clemens---reeled off a list of “conditions” for which doctors recommend injections of Vitamin B12, the kind that R. says he was administered in the buttocks by ex-pal B. McNamee but which B. on Wednesday denied having ever administered to said buttocks.

The congressman asked R. if he had Alzheimer’s (“No,” replied R. unhesitatingly) or whether he was anemic (“No” again) or whether he was a vegetarian (“No I am not,” said a slightly grinning R., whose backyard barbecues were once the stuff of H-E-B commercials. [Hey, remember the one where he had A. Pettitte over?]) Finally, the honorable cut to the heart of the matter by asking R. if he were a vegan. R. requested that the congressman repeat the question, then a momentary look of confusion crossed the Seven-Time Cy Young Award Winner’s face before he declared---with a touch of pride, or so it sounded to us---“I don’t know what that is.”