Torre mum on Clemens, steroids

Go, Go Smear the Poison Ivy of the NL…

Joe Torre won’t pick sides between Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee, the former Yankees strength coach who accused the Rocket of using performance-enhancing drugs.

“You’re not going to get me in that jackpot,” the former Yankees manager said Wednesday. “I’d rather just stay away from making any in-depth comment about the whole steroid-HGH thing.”

...“I’m very close to Roger. When I say close to him, he was a great competitor for me. Andy the same way. And I certainly know they’re two proud individuals that only like to do the right thing,” Torre said. “I’d just like to leave it at that.”

...A total of 20 current and former Yankees were identified in Mitchell’s report. Torre said the high total likely was due to two of Mitchell’s primary sources being from the New York area: McNamee and former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski.

“It made it look like a lopsided report,” Torre said. “Plus, don’t forget, the Yankees have so many people coming through there on a year-to-year basis. We changed over quite often, whether it would be a player for the month of May, a player for the month of September. But I think the big part of it was the access, where these two people were both based in New York.”