The ANNOTICO Report

Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds, and Jason Giambi are exemplary people, but
because of their use of steroids, (both banned, and "winked at" by the
League) some sensationalists yellow journalists paint them as "fallen".

Yet those same journalists will  fawn over Coke/Crack addicted, Alcoholic,
Braggadocios, Showboating, Loud, Obnoxious, Self Centered, Selfish, Self
Indulgent, Ignorant, Mean, Oafish, Misogynistic,Violent, Retards, merely
because they act in an outrageous "Entertaining style".

Judge for yourself, from the profile from this excerpted article. Is Giambi
your kind of  guy??

Los Angeles Times
By Nora Zamichow
Times Staff Writer
March 4, 2005

Jason Giambi went from gangly Southland player to major league slugger.

Giambi, the eldest of three siblings, grew up in a 1950s ranch house in a
baseball-mad suburb east of Los Angeles. In high school, he was
well-mannered and confident. He was also "very sensitive," recalled Jim
Bastion, his baseball coach at South Hills. "He likes people to like him."

Giambi had a wild side too. He and his younger brother, Jeremy, liked to
bike through storm drains and jump from the roof of their home into the
swimming pool.

On a baseball diamond, though, Jason was all business.

"He didn't have a lot of power," said a high school teammate, "but he had a
great swing."
He had excellent hand-eye coordination, an essential, unteachable
ingredient in batting success.

At South Hills High School in West Covina, he excelled at football and
basketball, but baseball was his passion.

Jason was tall and gangly, friends called him "Gumby," after the spindly,
bendable toy.

By his sophomore year, he was on the Huskies' varsity, where he pitched and
played shortstop and second base.Giambi was not the most talented player,
but he may have been the most driven.

"As a kid, [Giambi] was an unbelievable player who didn't get any
recognition," said Shawn Wooten, a high school teammate who later played
first base for the Angels.

Giambi's only offer from a four-year college, and it was from Cal State
Long Beach."You sensed this guy had special abilities, especially as a
hitter," his coach  recalled. "Basically, he took every at-bat personally."

Giambi, a freshman, and Don Barbara, a senior and Long Beach's leading
hitter, used to talk about their dreams. Giambi said he intended to make it
to the big leagues and win a World Series.

"He wasn't cocky, just very secure. He knew he was going to do it,"
recalled Barbara, now the hitting coach at Long Beach. "He wanted to do
something great."

In 1990, Giambi batted .422 and was named Big West Conference freshman of
the year. The next season, he was an All-Big West selection on a team that
reached the College World Series.

His sweet batting stroke, paired with outsized ambition, propelled Giambi
to the big leagues.

In 1992, Oakland selected him in the second round of Major League
Baseball's amateur draft. He spent two years in the minor leagues, playing
in Modesto; Huntsville, Ala.; and Tacoma, Wash.

Giambi reached the big leagues in May 1995. The 24-year-old rookie —
earnest, quiet, good-natured — wouldn't speak to the Oakland veterans
unless spoken to.

After several solid seasons, he exploded into stardom. Previously a doubles
hitter, he began to launch home runs in bunches.

Jason was never flashy, but he was determined.

"He's your coal miner," said Ted Polakowski, director of minor league
operations for the A's, "a guy who goes to work and gets the job done."

Giambi, knowing no one in the Bay Area,started dropping by Ron Simms'
custom motorcycle shop in Hayward. He had always wanted a Harley, and
Simms' shop was known among bike buffs. If Simms was short-handed, Giambi
helped out. When Giambi said he was looking for a place to live, Simms
offered a bedroom with a fireplace in his spacious home.

"He's one of the nicest guys in the world," Simms said.

Giambi's parents visited regularly and stayed with Simms. Jeanne Giambi
apologized for her son's messy habits and cleaned his room. To Simms, the
Giambis were like the Cleavers, the All-American clan on "Leave It to
Beaver."

Giambi was disarmingly likable and guileless. "There's an innocence about
him that you can't fake," said A.J. Hinch, a former Oakland teammate.

He was also intensely ambitious. This mix of qualities provided little
armor against the temptations that pervaded baseball clubhouses in the
1990s. The use of steroids had turned the game into what Sports Illustrated
called "a pharmacological trade show."

Steroids are synthetic hormones that help build muscle mass and stamina.
They are potent, and risky. Possible side effects include tumors and heart
disease. It is illegal to use them except under a doctor's supervision.

The spread of steroids coincided with an unprecedented assault on
baseball's slugging records. In 1998, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis
Cardinals set a single-season record with 70 home runs. Three years later,
Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants smashed 73.

In Giambi's early days, the once-mighty A's were a last-place team.
McGwire, then with Oakland and one of the team's few stars, took Giambi
under his wing. The two lifted weights together.

"Mark has been everything to me, from mentor to big brother to everything
else," Giambi once said.

Jose Canseco, a former Oakland teammate, has alleged that McGwire fueled
his power surge with steroids. McGwire, now retired, has denied the
allegation.

He has, however, acknowledged using androstenedione, a substance that turns
into testosterone in the body. Androstenedione, permitted in the major
leagues when McGwire used it, has since been banned.

Giambi, nicknamed G, took over for McGwire at first base and slid into a
new role: team leader. Fans saw him not as the son of banker, but as a
blue-collar Joe who liked babes and bikes and pro wrestling. He wore his
hair long and his beard stubbly. He sported muscle shirts that showed off
his tattoos.

Giambi went out of his way to make rookies feel welcome. He also bucked up
teammates who were down. In a game against the Cleveland Indians, Hinch
misplayed a bunt, allowing a crucial run to score. Afterward, the catcher
had his head buried in his locker when Giambi tapped his shoulder.

"This ought to make you feel better," Giambi said, handing him a Mountain
Dew. Hinch remembered being surprised that Giambi knew his favorite soda.

On the field, Giambi was in the midst of a transformation — from spray
hitter to slugger. In each of his first two full seasons in the majors, he
had hit 20 home runs. In 1999, he hit 33.

"He'd be in there lifting weights when I got there and he'd be lifting
weights when I left," said Aaron Small, his high school teammate, who
pitched three seasons for Oakland.

But others suspected that there was more to his regimen than pumping iron.
"Every year, he gained more weight and more power."

In 2000, to Giambi's delight, the A's acquired his brother Jeremy, a
utility player, from the Kansas City Royals. The two lived together,
critiqued each other's swings and hung out on the road. Jason, then earning
more than $3 million a year, bought a five-bedroom home in Claremont for
their parents.

Fans besieged him, and he always obliged with autographs, friends say. He
met his wife, Kristian, at a P.F. Chang's restaurant in Walnut Creek after
being beckoned by her 90-year-old grandmother, an A's enthusiast.

Then, improbably, the bargain-basement A's made it to the playoffs. Giambi,
at 29, was named the American League's most valuable player after hitting
43 home runs and posting a .333 batting average. He gave his teammates
signed commemorative bats with the inscription: "Thanks for your help
during the run."

He gave Bastion, his high school coach, a signed bat as well.

After the 2001 season, Giambi became a free agent. Hoping to woo him,
Yankee management arranged for Yogi Berra, New York Mayor Rudolph W.
Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki to call him. But Giambi wavered. Later,
Yankee General Manager Brian Cashman joked: "We probably should have had
everyone call Jason's father."

Finally, Giambi signed for $120 million over seven years, one of the
richest baseball contracts ever. He cut his hair and shaved his goatee, in
keeping with the Yankees' strict dress code.

Giambi was no longer his team's biggest star; he was one of many. The
scrutiny from fans and the media was unlike anything he had experienced.

In his first season as a Yankee, Giambi lived up to expectations, hitting
41 home runs and batting .314. In 2003, Giambi again hit 41 homers but was
hampered by a knee injury and batted only .250.

That December, Giambi was called before a grand jury in San Francisco. He
was among more than two dozen athletes who testified in the federal
investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a company believed
to have peddled steroids to some of the biggest names in baseball and track
and field.

Steroids had been tolerated in big league clubhouses.

Though his testimony was kept secret, Giambi's world began to unravel. He
reported for spring training in 2004 with a noticeably shrunken physique.
Asked whether he had been a steroid user, he denied it.

His season was a disaster. Giambi played in fewer than half the Yankees'
games. He looked haggard and complained of exhaustion but was evasive about
the cause. Finally, it emerged that he had been treated for a tumor in his
pituitary gland. It proved benign.

Then, in December, the San Francisco Chronicle disclosed portions of
Giambi's grand jury testimony from the previous year. He had admitted to
using steroids for at least three seasons.

Testifying under a grant of immunity, he said he injected human growth
hormone into his stomach and testosterone into his buttocks, took a liquid
steroid known as "the clear" and used a steroid balm called "the cream,"
the newspaper reported.

The reaction was fierce.  Giambi hid from the media for weeks before an
appearance at Yankee Stadium last month. Sweating and contrite, the
five-time All-Star apologized repeatedly without ever using the word
"steroids."

"Everybody makes mistakes," he said. "I hope people will find it in their
heart to give me a second chance."

Last week, Giambi arrived at spring training in Tampa, Fla. During the
off-season, the Yankees reacquired first baseman Tino Martinez, the player
Giambi had replaced. Now, Giambi has to prove himself all over again.

Hinch said he understands why Giambi strayed. "Athletes all have that
desire to get that edge, whether it's getting more out of life or one more
swing of the bat," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/
la-sp-giambi4mar04,1,5515342.story?coll=
la-headlines-sports&ctrack=1&cset=true

To UNSUBSCRIBE, Please Click on Reply, and type "Unsubscribe" in Subject
line.
The ANNOTICO Reports
Annotico@earthlink.net