"As Roger Clemens, one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, sits before a House committee trying to defend himself against allegations that he used steroids and human growth hormone, people slip into the crowded hearing room to take a peek. Small groups of fans rotate in for 20 minutes, then are escorted out. A woman in a black Yankees baseball cap squeezes by, pressing into the packed room. A teenager in a blue blazer sits on the edge of his seat trying to determine whether Clemens is lying or telling the truth. A government worker who took personal leave watches to see whether his hero has fallen, trying to decide where blame lies in this whole sordid baseball scandal.

For almost five hours, blame gets tossed around the room like curveballs. A baseball hero on a mound of blame politely and desperately staring down members of Congress who throw fast ones of their own. Who did what when, why, how? Fielding questions in a room where blame is determined: Blame the league, the players, the trainers. Blame ignorance. Blame the edge, that thing that puts you on top.

As you stand in the crowded room, you look for another culprit -- abstract, yet real. You wonder what blame can be laid at the feet of our culture's Great Expectations -- the need to build up ordinary people and make them extraordinary. Hold them to incredibly high standards, then watch them fall.

Others, you discover, have wondered about this, too.

Waiting his turn to squeeze in to see the Clemens spectacle, Jonathan Wagner, 16, an 11th-grader from Reading, Pa., says, "I think fans expect them to perform at the highest level. They feel pressure to use performance-enhancing drugs. Society puts pressure on them to be almost perfect. Sometimes it's hard to do that on their own. I'm a high school athlete, and it's a lot of pressure for me. I can't imagine the pressure on the professional stage. There is competition to be better than everybody else."

Says Eduardo Contreras, 36, of Bethesda: "We idealize our heroes. We expect them to live up to impeccable standards they obviously may not meet. The amount of spotlight they get makes it hard to look at them as ordinary people."

What is the culture's role in driving some athletes and ordinary people to try to improve upon what is only human? To artificially build a better body, make it bigger, stronger, faster; to beat records with amazing power; to entertain us on the pitching mound (or on the track, or in the football stadium); to hit hundreds of home runs with balls thrown at superhuman speeds -- what role would Great Expectations have in this ugly baseball story?

Expectations, we know, do not literally bend the player over and stick a syringe in his butt. Expectations do not cook up chemicals to avoid detection. The fan, holding expectations, comes to the game, cheers and goes home.

But some people argue the fan plays a silent role in this horrible story of cheating. Fans have come to expect the damn-near impossible from players. Not satisfied that they bring home one gold medal. Make it five. Not satisfied that they hit 400 home runs; make it 568, even if they may be tainted. To hell with that, did you see that hit? How much is the home run ball worth?

Some players have turned to chemicals to enhance their performance -- though they may deny it -- to earn more money and give fans what they expect: impossible feats.

"Bigger, faster, stronger is a mantra so often heard in all of American culture," says Dave Czesniuk, director of operations at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. "Fans get a rush, a drive out of this in watching athletes pull off new feats and expecting athletes to pull off new feats. It is when they develop attitudes, moods, emotions based on pretty unrealistic expectations that it becomes dangerous.

"Fans might create a superhuman image in their minds about these athletes. All of a sudden, when athletes make mistakes, they become supervillains. We have to remember athletes are still human beings. Just like they should not be held to some superhuman standard, we can't condemn them as supervillains when they make these mistakes, either."

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), one of the toughest questioners in yesterday's hearing, says in an interview beforehand: "I think fans play a big role. . . . If fans were to make it clear they will not tolerate watching people cheating, violating baseball policies, it would send a big message. Everybody has a part to play in this. It is so big. If fans began to boo these folks they suspect, it would have an impact."

Outside the hearing room, people have lined up to get in. Fans wait hours to catch a glimpse of Clemens, bigger than life in a big dark blue suit looking at members of Congress with the same steely eyes that stared down some of the sport's best sluggers. Who would blink?

He's big in the blue leather chair. Maybe the biggest man in the crowded room. One of the greatest pitchers of all time, here to save his dignity, his legacy, explain that he is only human. Surrounded by people who need to believe in him, because a hole in their belief would shatter them. A crack in the record of the perfect pitcher would be too much. Leave shame on all those no-hitters, stain the record. Because if you can't believe in baseball, what can you believe in?

They are here to watch one man's word batted against another. Brian McNamee, Clemens's former trainer, says he injected Clemens in the buttocks. Clemens says it never happened. Though teammate Andy Pettitte had told investigators that Clemens admitted to him 10 years ago that he had used HGH, Clemens says, "I think he misremembers."

During the hearing, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) asks Clemens about an allegation in a transcript in which Clemens is quoted as saying, "Hey man, whatever I can do to get the edge."

Davis asks Clemens, "Do you recall saying that?"

Clemens says, "Congressman, when I'm on the mound, I want an edge."

Someone is lying, a member of Congress says at one point. The truth, one knows, cannot contradict itself. The game of baseball has a way of explaining life.

Outside the hearing room, Tyler Walker, 16, a 10th-grade student from Green Cove Springs, Fla., is waiting. He thinks fans may have a small part in the scandal. "The standards we hold them to encourage and pressure them to take actions like use steroids," Tyler says. "I don't think it's an excuse, but I can see where they get pressure to do superhuman actions, to perform superhuman feats."

Tyler leans across the rope that holds back the fans. "Maybe it's in the American psyche," Tyler says. "We want more. We want to see something that is incredible. Maybe there is something bred into the American psyche. That makes us want to see incredible acts. Not just winning. In football, we don't just want to see them kick the ball, we want to see them hit harder, run faster. In baseball, we don't want to see line drives, we want to see no-hitters. We want to see home runs. We want to see big plays all the time. That creates pressure."

Nobody is saying Clemens is guilty. No one is saying there is justification for using performance-enhancing drugs, only that they can understand the pressure to get an edge, if ever so slight, over the competition.

Zach Goddard, 16, another 11th-grader from Reading, is cautious: "Fans love them. But they want to see them at their best. Sometimes the best may be above what he can do. They want him at his best naturally. If they don't know he's using steroids, they don't care. All they want to see is the sweet plays."

As they wait, they know a great baseball player may have lost the biggest inning of all, one pitted against a record clean of allegations. "We know the older generation won off pure willpower," Tyler says. "You wonder whether these winners are breaking limits of respected athletes of old by using steroids. It's just sad."" (DeNeen L. Brown, The Washington Post, February 14, 2008)