Mike Celizic

If Roger Clemens has done nothing else, at least he’s provided a blueprint for every athlete who in the future is summoned before Congress or a grand jury to answer questions about steroids or anything else: Just say yes.

I can’t help but wonder if that thought has crossed Clemens’ mind in the brief time since he took center stage in Washington, D.C., promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and then insisted everybody was lying but him. He spent the better part of the day saying no, and all it has gotten him is a justice department investigation to determine whether he committed perjury.

My legal advisers tell me that it doesn’t look good for Clemens. If the feds can’t nail him for perjury, they can probably get him for obstruction of justice. But even if he somehow wriggles out of this predicament, he’s pretty much finished as any sort of American hero.

And all because he couldn’t bring himself to just say yes.

Somewhere, Roger Clemens’ fans are screaming an objection. He’s innocent, they’re saying. He said so himself. Why should he admit to anything?

We all have to admit that there is a chance he is innocent and has spoken the truth at every turn, just as we have to admit that there’s a chance that there will come an election year when Ralph Nader won’t run for president. But that’s missing the point. This isn’t about guilt or innocence. It’s about forgiveness and moving on.

The only way to do that is to just say yes. If Mark McGwire had said it, he might be in the Hall of Fame today. If Rafael Palmeiro had said it, he might still be playing ball. If Barry Bonds had said it, he wouldn’t be facing federal perjury charges.

Just look at Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi. They said yes, expressed their sorrow and apologies, asked forgiveness, and that’s pretty much been it. They’re both at spring training going about their business and talking to reporters about the team’s prospects for the coming year.

Clemens, meanwhile, is peppered with questions about perjury and his testimony everywhere he goes and his wife is reading something new and embarrassing about herself every day.

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All because Clemens didn’t have the brains to just say yes.

We’ve reached the point where everyone in baseball is presumed guilty when in actuality no more than 50 or 60 percent — OK, 70 percent tops — of the guys who played before 2004 actually dabbled in performance-enhancers.

Under such circumstances, the only thing a player accused of taking a shot or a pill or a salve is to admit it, whether he actually did it or not. It doesn’t matter if he never ingested anything stronger than distilled water and can prove it. If the accusation comes, he can save himself a world of grief  — and maybe his job and future Hall of Fame chances — by just saying yes.

But he shouldn’t stop there. He should apologize profusely, admit what a wretched person he is, come up with a believable rationale — “I was only trying to heal faster so I could help the team, and I realized how wrong it was” — express eternal remorse, offer to do public penance, volunteer in a soup kitchen — anything to demonstrate a suitable level of remorse. It may be sappy, but it works.

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Clemens has always had his enemies, but he also had built up a considerable store of goodwill before he was named prominently in the Mitchell Report in December. Instead of keeping quiet about it or at least getting some competent advice, he went on the offensive, booking himself an interview with his good buddy Mike Wallace on “60 Minutes,” then attempting to force his former trainer and chief accuser, Brian McNamee, to incriminate himself in a phone conversation that Clemens secretly taped.

Neither did him any good because he came off as being defiant. His defense all along was, “I’m the great Roger Clemens, and therefore you are required to admire, respect, love and believe me at all times and in all things. Also, I’m proud to be an American.”

That doesn’t wash with the public. We’ll accept many flaws in our heroes, but they can’t be washed down with truculence. Give us some remorse, give us an admission of “bad judgment,” grovel a little and we’ll forgive just about anything, including things you may not even have done.

Forget what Nancy Reagan said a generation ago. In matters like these, just say yes.

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