Giambi Gets Let Off The Hook

This really has nothing to do with the Mets, but sadly steroids in baseball has become an issue that transcends fan allegiances. Besides, Jason Giambi could have gotten his steroids from Kirk Radomski. Who knows.

Jason Giambi, in a rarely seen 2002 file photo

Bud Selig today effectively pardoned Giambi, as the onetime Yankee first baseman/currently injured Yankee DH was told that in return for being nice to George Mitchell, he'd face no disciplinary action from Major League Baseball in its ongoing steroid investigation.

Bud's message? Tell us who else did steroids, and you won't get in trouble for doing steroids. Sounds simple enough. Giambi, who once waded through a dirty creek because his canoe got stuck in its far reaches without a paddle, has gone from facing potentially serious disciplinary action (wasn't there a legal component, as well?) to being a free man. Whenever that BALCO guy gets out of prison he might even be able to hook Jason up with some HGH.

More accurately I think this is a subtle and reluctant admission by Selig that the whole steroid business is his fault too. Although he seems like a proud yet fragile, self-righteous yet hush-hush kind of guy, and has thus far displayed terrible leadership in the midst of a sticky situation for baseball by accepting absolutely no responsibility for the steroid mess, as much as he'd like to throw the players under the bus here he knows that he can't punish anyone for doing something that was a) legal at the time it was done, b) turned a total blind-eye to by Major League Baseball's owners and administrators, and c) effectively encouraged by those same owners and administrators for as long as baseball was able to get away with it.

Bud's backed into a corner

Jason Giambi did steroids while everyone did steroids because they could and it made them richer, all while they were conveniently left alone to make their own decisions, because their own decisions were making their bosses richer too. Bud wasn't so pouty about steroids when they were filling seats and raising revenues.

I'm no Giambi fan. I think he's a sellout who, 'roids aside, in 2001 could have gotten much richer, but instead got much much richer and went from being a long-haired, cool, tatted-up rebel in Oakland who did steroids to yet another plain, cookie-cutter Yankee conformist who did steroids.

Daaamn homey. In Oak-town you was the maaan homey. The f#$@ happened to you?

But he deserves to be left alone here. Bud Selig would go after every guilty roider if he could, but he knows he can't. He had to "pardon" Giambi. And he should probably realize that if the investigations ever end and everyone else who played Major League Baseball in the late 90s is publicly indicted for using steroids, after he's forced to pardon many more Giambis for only doing what all the other cool kids were doing, people might shift their anger over tainted records and a fake home run boom from Major League Baseball's players to its power structure. At which point he'll be the one stuck up a dirty creek without a paddle.

Selig's a worm. Never liked him. He made the right decision today, but only because he had to.

(Photos courtesy thediamondangle.com, karendecoster.com, cnn.net)