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Roger Clemens apologized Monday for unspecified mistakes in his personal life, a statement Brian McNamee's lawyers intend to use to attack the pitcher's credibility at trial.

The Daily News reported last week Clemens had a decade-long relationship with country star Mindy McCready that began when she was 15 and an aspiring singer. The newspaper also linked the seven-time Cy Young Award winner to former Manhattan bartender Angela Moyer and Paulette Dean Daly, a former wife of champion golfer John Daly.

Clemens denied having an affair with a 15-year-old but didn't specifically address whether he had a romance with McCready.

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"I think what it says without saying it is that he apparently admits he cheated on his wife and family. And if he cheated on them, I think it's reasonable to assume that he cheated his fans and baseball," Richard Emery, one of McNamee's lawyers, said in a telephone interview.

"I think this is all very probative of his behavior and his penchant for denying the truth, and it certainly will come into play in the defamation lawsuit. He certainly doesn't deserve to be compensated for loss of reputation when his reputation, to the extent he ever had it, of being a family man, was totally false and built on a house a cards, a tissue of lies, if you will."

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Clemens' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said last week he will talk with his client about whether to proceed with the defamation suit following the wave of unpleasant publicity.

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NEW YORK (AFP) — Embattled Major League Baseball star Roger Clemens began a 10-year affair with country music singer Mindy McCready when she was just 15 years old, the New York Daily News reported Monday.

Citing several unnamed sources, the newspaper's report is the latest blow to the legendary pitcher's reputation as he fights allegations of steroid doping and remains under investigation for lying at a Congressional hearing.

Clemens began the affair when he was 28, a married father of two and pitching for the Boston Red Sox while McCready, now 32, was a karaoke bar performer dreaming of a singing career, the News reported.

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On the Oversight Committee's Web site, the letter to the DOJ is posted along with a staff memo prepared for Chairman Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) that is particularly interesting. It breaks down the perjury case against Clemens in fascinating detail, almost as if it was a Cliff Notes version of the Feb. 13 congressional hearing.

The one thing to keep in mind is that this memo was put together by the staff of the Democratic chairman, and was released only by Waxman - not the ranking minority member Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), too. That detail gives the appearance that while the Republicans ultimately agreed to refer Clemens, they weren't about to roast him in the process.

Still, the memo is still of great interest. Here are the memo's seven points made by Clemens under oath "that appear to be contradicted by other evidence before the committee or implausible."

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The truth hiding began in early January. Clemens told CBS' Mike Wallace that if he had known Brian McNamee had accused him of performance-enhancing drug use, he would have met with Mitchell report reps "in a heartbeat." Not true. Clemens' agents knew about McNamee's allegations eight days before the report's Dec. 13 release. Clemens testified he knew about the claims by at least Dec. 9.

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When Wallace suggested it was impossible for a middle-aged pitcher to have Clemens' kind of success, Clemens said, "Not impossible. You do it with hard work. Ask any of my teammates." So the feds did. They asked close friend, teammate and workout partner Andy Pettitte. Pettitte distinctly recalled a 1999 or 2000 conversation in which Clemens said he used human growth hormone.

"I think he misremembers," Clemens told a congressional committee on Feb. 13. Really? He just sort of "misremembers" his close buddy telling him he took HGH? According to Pettitte, Clemens later said he was referring to his wife's HGH use.

Not true. Debbie Clemens wasn't injected with HGH by McNamee until 2003, at least three years after the initial Pettitte-Rocket conversation.

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Congressional investigators asked Clemens several times during his deposition if he had ever discussed HGH or steroids with McNamee. Each time Clemens said no.

Not true. Clemens later testified in the congressional hearing that he and McNamee had a heated exchange after Debbie Clemens suffered an adverse reaction to an HGH injection.

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eam Clemens lawyers Hardin and Lanny Breuer blasted the Mitchell report for its supposedly sloppy investigative work. They were especially upset about McNamee's claim that Clemens attended a June 1998 party at then-teammate Jose Canseco's house. The party was the alleged birthplace of Clemens' involvement with PEDs. "We will be able to establish categorically, without question, that our client wasn't there," said Breuer that day. Clemens chimed in too. "And second of all, I never was at the party."

"You weren't at this party?" said a congressional attorney.

"That's correct," said Clemens.

Categorically and without question, huh? Then what about the alleged photo of Clemens and a Canseco neighbor posing together at the party? What about the Clemens nanny telling congressional investigators that Clemens was at Canseco's house that day?

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Clemens, with a considerable assist from committee member Rep. Tom Davis, tried to undermine the former nanny's credibility by suggesting she could barely put a noun and verb together. "And her English, as I understand it, is not that good," said the helpful Davis.

"It is not that good," confirmed Clemens.

Not true. A spokesperson for a congressional attorney who took part in a recent telephone interview with the nanny, told The New York Times that she spoke with an accent, but was otherwise completely literate

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On Wednesday, Congress asked the agency to investigate whether Clemens "committed perjury and made knowingly false statements."

Clemens has only himself to blame. In less than three months, Clemens has y'all-ed his way into more corners than a folded flag. Remember a movie last year called "Reservation Road"? The poster tagline read: "To find the truth, you have to find who's hiding it."

Clemens hid the truth. He didn't hide it very well, which is why IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky of BALCO fame is now Clemens' worst nightmare. Let the lip licking begin.

Novitzky is a grinder who has already put away Olympian Marion Jones and former NFL defensive player of the year Dana Stubblefield. So the idea that Clemens will "eat his lunch," as Team Clemens attorney Rusty Hardin so ham-handedly put it, is beyond hilarious. Clemens got his clock cleaned by little, gavel-waving Rep. Henry Waxman of California. Just wait until Novitzky starts dumpster diving into his life.

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The House committee Clemens testified before two weeks ago is reportedly ready to ask the Justice Department to investigate whether the baseball star committed perjury. A key point revolves around a 1998 barbecue at former Major Leaguer Jose Canseco's home. It's there that Clemens' former trainer, Brian McNamee, says Clemens discussed steroid use.

""I don't remember his party," Clemens said under oath before Congress. But reports say a photo has surfaced showing Clemens was there. Another report has put Clemens' wife, Debbie, right back in the middle of this controversy. "She feels like a pawn in (McNamee's) game," Roger Clemens said before Congress.

The new report says Roger Clemens often joked about a memorable scene from the Canseco barbecue, when his wife and Canseco's then-wife, Jessica, compared the results of their breast augmentation surgeries.

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Former President George H.W. Bush confirmed yesterday, through a spokesman, that he has reached out to Roger Clemens in the wake of the Mitchell Report's release. It's exactly that relationship that has one of Brian McNamee's attorneys crying foul.

Jim Appleby, Bush's spokesman, told Newsday that Bush and Clemens have spoken since baseball's steroid investigation became public. Clemens said as much Wednesday - although he never specifically said Bush's name, referring only to "the former President of the United States" - during his testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"President Bush called Roger," Appleby told Newsday. "They are very friendly."

Like Clemens, Bush - who served one term as president beginning in January 1989 and is the father of current president George W. Bush - makes his full-time home in the Houston area. Bush attends a handful of Astros games each season. During Clemens' three years with the team, 2004-06, he routinely socialized with Bush.

Appleby said Bush supports Clemens in his fight to clear his name. Asked if Bush believes Clemens over his accuser, McNamee, Appleby replied, "That I don't know."

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"When all this happened, the former president of the United States found me in a deer blind in south Texas and expressed his concerns that this was unbelievable, and stay strong and hold your head up high," Clemens testified.

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"We know that baseball announcers broadcasting the games at the time said Roger was not at the party," Hardin said. "Jose Canseco has said Roger was not at the party, as has Canseco's former wife.

"Roger was playing golf at the time of the party and has stated that he may have stopped by the Canseco house after playing golf before heading to the ballpark for the game."

Whether Clemens attended the party was a focal point of the February 13 hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, where Clemens and former trainer Brian McNamee gave sworn testimony regarding Clemens' alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Clemens testified under oath that he was playing golf prior to that night's Blue Jays game against the Florida Marlins.

However, McNamee testified that the 45-year-old Clemens was indeed at the party, which was mentioned in Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's report on steroids and human growth hormone use in baseball

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Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the Congressional committee that will be interviewing Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee under oath on Wednesday, sent Clemens' lawyer a letter Sunday questioning if his published comments from a day earlier were intended to "intimidate" special IRS agent Jeff Novitzky..........

..............Many people familiar with the case expect Novitzky to turn his attention to Clemens, which may have been why Rusty Hardin, Clemens' lawyer, was quoted in Sunday's editions of The New York Times saying, "I can tell you this: If he ever messes with Roger, Roger will eat his lunch."

That quote caught the attention of Waxman (D-Calif.), who wrote in his letter to Hardin, "If today's quotation is accurate, however, it goes beyond any personal enmity that exists between Roger Clemens and Mr. McNamee. I do not know your intent in making this statement, but under one interpretation it can be seen [as] an attempt to intimidate a federal law enforcement official in the performance of his official duties."

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