Apr 28, 2008 8:00 am US/Pacific
Singer 'Cannot Refute' Roger Clemens Affair Story
Daily News Reports That Pitcher's Adulterous Relationship With Mindy McCready Began When She Was 15
NEW YORK (AP) ―
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The New York Daily News is reporting that Roger Clemens' 10-year affair with Mindy McCready began when the country star was just 15.
Brad Barket (l) and Scott A. Miller/Getty Images
Roger Clemens had a decade-long relationship with country star Mindy McCready that began when she was a 15-year-old aspiring singer and the pitcher was a Boston Red Sox ace, the New York Daily News reported.
Clemens' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, confirmed a long-term relationship but told the newspaper it was not sexual. But Tuesday, the singer was quoted by the News saying "I cannot refute anything in the story." Adding, "I have known Roger Clemens for a long time." She did not elaborate further.
"He flatly denies having had any kind of an inappropriate relationship with her," Hardin said. "He's considered her a close family friend. ... He has never had a sexual relationship with her." McCready's mother also believes her daughter and the baseball ace were strictly platonic friends.
Clemens was 28 and a married father of two when he first met McCready, then 15, the newspaper reported.
Clemens, of course, is already under fire for alleged steroid use and for taking other performancing-enhancing drugs...a charge he has flatly denied, most notably in a televised interview on CBS' "60 Minutes."
The sex allegations story, which appeared on the newspaper's Web site Sunday night and in editions Monday, quoted several people who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation. It said Clemens sent cash to McCready to help her with legal issues and reached out to her when she was in jail last year in Tennessee.
The 32-year-old McCready, sentenced last September for violating probation from a 2004 drug arrest, was released from jail last Dec. 30. The violation occurred in July when McCready was accused of scuffling with her mother and resisting arrest at her mother's home in Fort Myers, Fla. She still must serve two years' probation.
McCready had a No. 1 single in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time."
The revelation could undermine Clemens' reputation, which is central to the defamation suit the former pitcher has filed against former personal trainer Brian McNamee. McNamee contends Clemens used performance-enhancing substances during his major league career.
"If true, it's just another example of Roger's pervasive prevarications which will be at the core of any defamation case," said McNamee's attorney, Richard Emery, in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Hardin did not respond immediately to an e-mail from the AP.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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