| Position | First Base |
| Team | New York Yankees |
| Years of Experience | 10 years |
| Age | 35 |
| Height | 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) |
| Weight | 230 lb. (104 kg) |
| Bats | Left |
| Throws | Right |
| College | Long Beach State |
| 2006 Salary | $20,428,571 |
| Place of Birth | West Covina, California |
| Selection | Amateur Draft, 1992 |
| Drafted by | Oakland Athletics |
| Major League Debut | May 8, 1995 |
Jason Gilbert Giambi (born January 8, 1971) is a Major League Baseball first baseman and was the American League MVP in 2000 with the Oakland Athletics.
Early years
Born in West Covina, California, Giambi attended South Hills High School and Sierra Vista Middle School in West Covina, California, where he was a three-sport standout. In baseball, he batted .386 during his three years of varsity baseball, and also led his team to the state finals as a senior. In football, he was an All-League quarterback. He was voted MVP in both basketball and baseball. Before making it into the MLB, Jason played a season for the Alaska Goldpanners in Fairbanks Alaska. The team is a member of the Alaska Baseball League.
Pro career
Oakland Athletics
Giambi made his major league debut in 1995 with the Oakland Athletics. Originally utilized occasionally as an outfielder, third baseman and first baseman, he assumed the full-time first base job upon the trade of Mark McGwire to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1997. Giambi also filled the leadership gap left by McGwire's departure, leading the team in 1998 with 27 home runs, 110 RBI and a .295 batting average.
Giambi's ascendency as one of the top left-handed sluggers in the game continued in 1999, when he hit .315 with 33 homers and 123 RBI, but was punctuated by a sensational 2000 season in which he hit .333 with 43 homers, 137 RBI, 108 runs, 137 walks and a .476 on base percentage. Giambi narrowly won the American League MVP award over Frank Thomas. His 2001 season was nearly identical, batting .342 with 38 homers, 120 RBI, 109 runs, 129 walks and a .477 on base percentage. He finished a close second in MVP voting to rookie Ichiro Suzuki. Both years, he led the Athletics to the post-season, both times losing in the American League Division Series to the New York Yankees.
New York Yankees
In the off-season after the 2001 season, Giambi became a free agent for the first time. Faced with the tough decision of re-signing with the cash-strapped Athletics and testing the market for a better deal, Giambi eventually signed a seven-year $120-million deal with the perennially contending New York Yankees. This angered many Athletics fans who were left with a feeling of betrayal over the departure of their team leader. Giambi remains an object of the A's fans' wrath whenever New York visits Oakland, and during a game on May 14, 2005, he was even hit with a beer thrown by an unruly fan on his way back to the dugout. New York fans, however, having seen their team pass on Manny Ramírez the previous off-season, were excited to add a top tier free agent to their offense, which was anemic throughout the 2001 post-season.
Giambi continued his slugging ways with New York, hitting 41 homers in both 2002 and 2003, and knocking in 122 and 107 runs, respectively. Although his average saw a dip from .314 in 2002 to .250 in 2003, he maintained an on-base percentage over .400 and remained one of the most patient hitters in the majors. Late in 2003 he was named by FBI officers investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) as being one of the baseball players believed to have received anabolic steroids from trainer Greg Anderson.
On July 30th 2004, test results confirmed that Jason Giambi had a benign tumor which placed him on the disabled list. He was treated for the tumor, and returned to the team and played in a game on September 14th, his first since July 23rd.
On December 1, 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle announced that it had seen Giambi's 2003 grand jury testimony in the BALCO investigation. In his testimony, he admitted to using steroids from 2001 to 2003, and had injected himself with human growth hormone during the 2003 season. On December 2, 2004, the paper ran a front page story alleging that Giambi had not only injected human growth hormone in his stomach, and testosterone into his buttocks, but that he had rubbed an undetectable steroid known as "the cream" on his body and placed drops of another steroid, called "the clear" under his tongue. In his testimony, Giambi also admitted to believing that he thought he had taken Clomid, a female fertility drug, which doctors reported can aggravate a tumor of the pituitary gland.
Towards the middle of the 2005 season, Giambi has seen a resurgence in his career. On July 31 he hit his 300th career homerun off of Esteban Yan of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. This was his 14th homerun of the month, tying Mickey Mantle for the Yankee record for home runs in July (Mantle hit 14 in 1961). Giambi ended the 2005 season as the American League leader in OBP (.440; second in MLB to Todd Helton), and had an OPS of .975, placing him fifth in the AL. He hit 32 homers, the seventh time in his career in which he has hit 30 or more. Giambi was named the AL Comeback Player of the Year.
Jason Giambi has started the 2006 very strong, as he was named the American League Player of the Month, hitting 9 homeruns and driving in 26 runs (RBI).
Giambi is the older brother of former major leaguer Jeremy Giambi, who has also admitted to using steroids during his career.
Did you know?
Jason Giambi wears the uniform number # 25 in honor of Yankees legend outfielder Mickey Mantle. Growing up as a child in Las Vegas, Nevada, Giambi's father was a huge Yankees and Mickey Mantle fan. Jason's numbers on his jersey, 2 and 5, add up to be 7, The Mick's jersey number.
Teams
- New York Yankees (2002-)
- Oakland Athletics (1995-2001)
- Alaska Goldpanners (1990) Jason played for the Alaska Goldpanners of the Alaska Baseball League before starting his major league career. The team is based in Fairbanks, Alaska.
