Well, now we know, absolutely conclusively, that the reason that Jason Giambi showed up underweight to spring training last year was NOT because he "cut out fast food."
Yes, according to sealed grand jury testimony that was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Yankees slugger has admitted that he did indeed use steroids, in addition to human growth hormone and, bizarrely, a female fertility drug.
Yankeenfreude? You bet! Now, I’m sure the Yankees are thrilled to have this guy under contract for five more years and more than $80 million, when 1) they gave him that money based on steroid-enhanced stats, and 2) he’ll never have credibility with their fans ever again. Oh, and he’s also completely untradeable.
Jayson Stark says the Yankees will try to void the contract. But such an attempt would likely be fought to the death by the union, probably because of the possibility that the same process would repeat itself dozens (if not hundreds) of times with other players busted for steroids. This thing could be like the salary cap the owners never had- which is doubly unfair, since they benefited from all those home runs for years.
I can think of another reason why Steinbrenner and Co. won’t be able to void the deal: when Giambi had that “mysterious health problem” that kept him out for much of last year, he was obviously in the care of the team’s doctors all along. Either he told them he’d used steroids, or they were able to figure it out themselves, yes? And since the team doctors are employees of the team, wouldn’t that make the organization aware –at least, by proxy- of Giambi’s steroid use? If that’s what happened, then the team is looking not only at not being able to void the contract, but possible sanction from the commissioners’ office for the cover-up.
There's still hope for Jason though: maybe he'll go the Ricky Williams route, and instead of accepting his drug suspension, he'll retire from baseball, grow his beard out again and "walk the Earth," doing steroids with the natives wherever he goes.
Frequent commenter “A” says Jason will also probably lose his Right Guard endorsement deal. Yea, the same thing happened to Hulk Hogan after HE testified under oath about his steroid use.
And finally, If I ever start a band, I think I'm going to have to call it The Clear And The Cream.
Posted by Stephen Silver at December 2, 2004 11:51 PM"And since the team doctors are employees of the team, wouldn’t that make the organization aware –at least, by proxy- of Giambi’s steroid use?"
Maybe, maybe not. I would hazard an educated guess that, like attorney-client privilege, doctor-patient privilege applies even if the doctor's being paid by a third party.
Posted by: Dave J at December 3, 2004 10:20 AMThanks for the mention...but to add, I know this is all just fodder for you to take cracks on the Yanks and say this is just the continuence of the downward spiral of the team, but that of course would ALL be WRONG. If you read an article today, our hero John McCain is going to prob. get involved in this soon. My guess would be he will throw a bill in there against the drug users and drug use in professional sports, thus giving the lawyers for the Yanks something to use to also get rid of Giambi. They may indeed have to pay him the 83 million bucks but they could get rid of him and not have him for 5 more years.
Posted by: A at December 4, 2004 12:57 PM"My guess would be he will throw a bill in there against the drug users and drug use in professional sports, thus giving the lawyers for the Yanks something to use to also get rid of Giambi."
Retroactively applied to a contract entered into BEFORE such a law became effective? Uh, does the phrase "unconstitutional impairment of contracts" mean anything to you? The parties are stuck with the contract as entered into: there can't be a legislative end-run around it.
Posted by: Dave J at December 4, 2004 07:13 PM