Jason Giambi - 1994 Upper Deck

The Bomber

Say what you want about Giambi – the ball could really jump off of his bat.

It’s funny that there were so many parallels to McGwire. Notice that he’s a 3B here – just like McGwire was when he was first a prospect. He also had a brother that played a major league sport whose career was rather ignominious (Dan McGwire – rotten QB and Jeremy Giambi – SLIDE DAMN YOU!) and brief.

Giambi played 3B when he first came up in 1995 and some in 1996, but not again except for a brief appearance in 1999 in a wild, woolly game with Kansas City. You could probably guess that it would be slow-pitch softball with Blake Stein and Dan Reichert pitching. It wound up a 13-11 Oakland loss when the Oakland pen (namely Billy Taylor and Chad Harville) blew a three-run lead and then gave up a game winning blast to Jermaine Dye. Giambi was inserted at third because Oakland lost the DH after pinch hitting and pinch running  like crazy late in the game. He was only in there for two batters.

Aside from Tony Phillips and Randy Velarde, that was a team of plodders. Giambi, Eric Chavez, John Jaha, Matt Stairs, Ben Grieve, Olmedo Saenz, Mike MacFarlane and Scott Spiezio didn’t win any foot races at all.

Oh, and attention Dusty Baker – those base cloggers finished fourth in the AL in runs scored, despite being 13th in batting average and stolen bases.

In honor of Giambi, and a gift for you on Christmas, here’s one of the best power trio rock songs ever: