* Problems with the new Clemens bio? Here we go again?

This item from The New York Times casts another shadow over a new book.

In The Rocket Who Fell to Earth, Jeff Pearlman’s new biography on Roger Clemens, the author reports an account offered by an unnamed Yankee episode in which Brian Cashman purportedly took Jason Giambi to task for poor performance by shouting at him to get back on whatever stuff he was taking as a member of the Oakland As.

In a telephone interview Thursday night, Cashman said that the anecdote described in the book never happened.

“That is completely false,” Cashman said.

He added, in reference to the author: “This guy never even called me and asked me if it was true. You think he would have done some fact-checking.”

Cashman said that even when he gets upset, “I don’t yell.”

Joe Torre took a fair deal of heat for his remarks about his deteriorated relationship with Cashman in The Yankee Years. More recently Matt McCarthy was accused of fabricating material in Odd Man Out. So this comes at a particularly bad time. Pearlman, a writer for SI.com, is author of Boys Will Be Boys (about the Dallas NFL franchise) and The Bad Guys Won, a look at the 1986 New York Mets; and Love Me, Hate Me, a Barry Bonds bio.

In a telephone interview on Thursday night, Pearlman stood behind his account.

“The source was a Yankee player who was an eyewitness and in whom I have 100 percent confidence,” Pearlman said.

But he acknowledged that he should have called Cashman for his reaction. “He’s totally right,” Pearlman said. “I didn’t call him for comment and I should have.

“But that doesn’t mean the story isn’t correct.”

I can understand the problem: Pearlman no doubt wants to protect his source from any retribution, which has the consequent effect of maintaining his own reputation as a stand-up guy to the rest of the team. On the other hand, anonymous sources can be like oral contracts: not worth the paper they’re printed on.

I’m reading The Rocket right now and so far it’s quite a powerful indictment as Pearlman chips away at Clemens’ statute. It brings up emotions of sadness and anger all at once. More on this, as well as an interview with the author, in the near future.

Can’t wait to see what Selena Roberts has to say about Cashman in her A-Rod book.