I spoke Wednesday with Jason Giambi, who certainly had mixed feelings about his former manager's decision to write it, something he's known about for quite a while because of a phone call he received from the publisher's fact-checker. These are his first public comments about the book.
"It's definitely hurtful," he told me. "When you play together that long, you're family. There's a certain trust involved. We were always like 'keep everything in-house, especially in New York with that media.' I was surprised to hear that he was writing a book ... he meant so much to that town. But from his point of view you can respect it. He had to get things off his chest," referring to Torre's bitter exit from the Yankees.When I asked if writing the book violated the trust of his former team, Giambi said, "That's hard to answer. We were all going in the same direction, we were a family. I can see how other guys will be hurt by it."
Then Giambi offers, "It's hard to know what came from Verducci and what came from Torre," referring to Tom Verducci, who co-authored the book. "That guy was always hanging around."
"Look, he's a great manager, he really is. I haven't talked to Joe about the book yet ... someday."Regarding A-Rod, Giambi had this to say:
"Alex is the best player in the game," Giambi said. "People gravitate towards negativity with him because that's the only way you hold somebody down who's that good."Nothing really wrong with anything he said, and coming from Giambi, at least we know he meant it.
Asked if he cared about Torre calling him a defensive liability Giambi had this to say:
"I'm OK with it. I knew what my job was. I came to New York to drive in runs."
7 Comments:
I suspect most of the yankees feel this way about Joe Torre book. Torre even ripped Mariano for the dave roberts steal he couldn't be happy reading about that. But I think the current yankees are not going to say anything negative about the book to try not to make it a bigger distraction than it is.
doesnt he already know he's a defensive liability so he shouldnt be hurt by it
In fact, while Torre writes that he was against signing Giambi because he saw him as a "defensive liability,"
Giambi doesn't seemed bothered by Torre's comments about him. "I'm OK with it. I knew what my job was. I came to New York to drive in runs."
I missed that. It's been added to the post. Thanks for your imput.
Great post, Lisa, thanks. I respect Giambi. He's been a straight up guy and I hope he succeeds in Oakland.
This writer sees absolutely nothing wrong with Torre's book and thinks it's a lot to do about nothing, which has to make the publishers very happy.
Giambi may say that "It's hard to know what came from Verducci and what came from Torre," but it's Torre's story, so everything is imputed to him.
To cite one of many examples of Torre's abject deceptiveness, when he told Francesa that he didn't know what SWF meant, he's being disingenuous, because it was his responsibility to discover the meaning and implications of the entire content of the book.
It's Torre's Yankee career in microcosm: he wants credit for all the good things, but no blame for any of the bad things.
what a stand up guy giambi is.he could have taken shots at joe but he doesnt.we all know about the steroids but he was upfront about that as well.i wish he could have stayed but i understand baseball is a business and people come and go and things change from year to year...anyone else see a standing-O for giambi when he comes to the stadium this year???
dont get me wrong i am extreamly excited about Tex!!!
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