Poll: 62 percent believe Clemens should be in HOF

Asked about Clemens' denials, 57 percent said they think he was lying. That was nearly double the 31 percent who said he was telling the truth.

Clemens had a combative session earlier this month before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at which he repeated earlier denials of using steroids. On Wednesday, Committee chairman Henry Waxman and ranking Republican Tom Davis sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking the Justice Department to investigate whether Clemens "committed perjury and made knowingly false statements" to a House committee.

The two said Clemens' statements in a Feb. 5 sworn deposition and at the Feb. 13 public hearing "that he never used anabolic steroids or human growth hormone warrants further investigation."

Sixty-two percent said they think Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, should be elected to baseball's Hall of Fame. That's about the same number who said in the survey that the Hall should admit sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, discredited in an earlier steroid scandal.

It's also more than the 46 percent who said they favor electing Barry Bonds to the Hall of Fame. The sport's home run king is battling federal charges that he lied when he testified he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.

In the new poll, 55 percent said baseball should not punish current major league players named in the Mitchell report for using steroids. When Gallup asked a similar question weeks before the report was released, just 37 percent said there should not be punishments, while 60 percent said there should.

The Gallup Poll involved telephone interviews with 456 baseball fans and was conducted from Feb. 21-24. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

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