Love Hurts

A lot of love gets lost on Valentine’s Day. Of course, every store’s display featuring an explosion of hearts and flowers, candies and Cupids will seem like it’s talking about love, but it’s only capturing one part of it. Romantic love is the kind we hear about, talk about, and search for, but few ever really discuss the love between friends. It evolves so effortlessly that people don’t even realize how much they love their friends and don’t think to tell them so… that is unless the unthinkable happens.

The pain of losing a loved one to death far exceeds anything I can imagine, but the loss of a friend can feel nearly as searing. People are afraid to talk about how badly it hurts to lose a friend for fear that they’ll look like a child crying in the driveway as the moving truck pulls away with their best pal in tow. However, the pain is even worse as you get older, because the people you call friends are the ones who truly know you as you’re finally learning to know yourself. A 5-year-old might trust a friend with a toy, but a 25-year-old will trust a friend with much more. And when you’re 5 and your friend steals your toy, you get over it and play together the next day. When you’re five, six, seven, or eight times that age and a friend steals your trust, it’s much more painful and difficult to get over.

This has nothing to do with sports, and yet it has everything to do with the conversation we’re having today about two prominent athletes who traveled from the mound to the Hill to speak their versions of the truth, neither of which sounds anything like the other.

I’ve read no fewer than a dozen different columns on the steroids hearing that involved Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, so I’m not going to rehash the details, the lies, or the fireworks, but I want to talk about the shattered friendship of Clemens and Pettitte.

Anyone who followed the sport knew that these two remarkable athletes were the best of friends. When Clemens decided to un-retire the first time, the discussion first centered on being closer to his family, but then immediately turned to his desire to play with Pettitte in Houston. They were like peas in a pod, which is why in part it’s so hard to believe the testimony on Wednesday, but which also makes it impossible for these two men not to feel like they’ve lost more than their integrity in this situation.

They’ve lost each other, and from what I know of losing a friend... that hurts like hell.

When Clemens spoke of Pettitte at the hearing, he said, “Mr. Congressman, Andy Pettitte is my friend. He will – he was my friend before this. He will be my friend after this.”

What’s not reflected in the transcript is the stumble and the pause before Clemens was able to choke out the last sentence. In that one moment, Clemens, who for the remaining four and half hours looked like a steel-faced, arrogant, tap-dancer, truly seemed like he was hurting... and not because Pettitte’s testimony damned his own reputation, but because this had blown up between the best of friends.

These two men genuinely cared about each other and loved each other. Far greater friendships have dissolved for lesser reasons, so it’s hard to believe that they’ll be drinking beers and throwing baseballs together anytime soon. But when you brush away the lies, the hearings, the betrayals, and the drugs, you’re left with one sad truth. Both of these men are going through the worst ordeals of their lives, and they can’t turn to their best friend to talk about it.

And that has to break their hearts.