From the archives: Jason Giambi says nothing, but brother confesses using illegal drug

This story was originally published in Newsday on March 14, 2005

Another day of spring training brought two more steroid bombshells, both of them landing within inches of Jason Giambi.

The Yankees slugger's mentor, former single-season home run champion Mark McGwire, was discussed in an FBI steroids investigation in the early 1990s, according to a report yesterday in the New York Daily News.

And Giambi's brother Jeremy confessed to his own steroid use, sharing his personal history - and joking about Jason Giambi's steroid use - in a Kansas City Star report published yesterday.

Giambi, in the middle of his own steroids storm, offered little about the newest controversies at Legends Field yesterday.

"I've been to camp to concentrate on baseball," said Giambi, who has been subpoenaed to testify Thursday at a Congressional hearing on steroids in baseball. "I'm going forward. I'm not living in the past."

McGwire, who retired after the 2001 season, also has a subpoena for Thursday's hearing. He has largely stayed out of the public eye during his retirement. His significantly thinner appearance increased suspicion that he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs to help accrue his 583 career home runs.

The Daily News report said McGwire was mentioned in "Operation Equine," a huge anabolic steroids investigation, but that he wasn't a target. Two dealers caught in the investigation told the newspaper that a man named Curtis Wenzlaff provided McGwire and A's teammate Jose Canseco with steroids.

One informant in the case said Wenzlaff injected McGwire at a Southern California gym on several occasions and established "arrays" of performance-enhancing drugs, such as a cocktail that included one-half cc of testosterone cypionate every three days; one cc of testosterone enanthate per week; Equipoise and Winstrol V, one-half cc every three days injected into the buttocks, one in one cheek, one in the other.

Canseco fingered McGwire for steroid use in his best-selling autobiography, "Juiced."

Canseco also wrote that McGwire apparently introduced Giambi to steroids; Giambi has long spoken of McGwire as a role model.

Yesterday, Giambi said he was unaware of the report, saying, "My wife came into town last night. We went out to dinner and watched some movies."

Not even his car radio exposed him to the day's big news. "Music. That's all I ever listen to," Giambi said.

The 34-year-old said he wasn't familiar even with what his brother said. Jeremy Giambi, Jason's teammate with the A's in 2000 and 2001, recently signed a minor-league contract with the Chicago White Sox. He hasn't played in the major leagues since 2003 with the Red Sox, and he said he wants to make amends.

"It's something I did," Jeremy Giambi said, referring to steroids. "I apologize. I made a mistake. I moved on. I kind of want it in the past."

Although Jeremy Giambi wouldn't comment directly on his brother's history, he made mention of Jason Giambi's much-publicized "apology" last month, when the Yankee declined to explain why he was apologizing.

"If you don't know what he's apologizing for," Jeremy Giambi said, "you must've been in a coma for two years."

Like his brother, Jeremy Giambi testified to the BALCO grand jury, and cited that as a reason why he won't go into more specifics about his usage.

Jason Giambi is still awaiting word about his status for Thursday's hearing, but it appears likely he'll get out of testifying. Congressman Tom Davis (R-Va.), the chair of the House Government Reform Committee, told NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday that one or more of the seven players subpoenaed might be excused. Davis previously told the San Jose Mercury News that the BALCO case might get a player "dis-invited," and while Davis wouldn't identify the player, it seems likely to be Giambi.

If a subpoenaed player doesn't appear, he will be subject to a contempt of Congress charge, Davis said.

Major League Baseball also plans to hand over by today's due date some of the records subpoenaed by the congressional committee investigating steroids in the sport. "We're producing documents by the deadline," Rob Manfred, executive vice president for labor relations in the commissioner's office, told The Associated Press. The committee gave baseball officials until today to produce documents about their new drug-testing program, including results - with the names of players removed.

Commissioner Bud Selig, in Scottsdale, Ariz., said he doesn't want to dwell on what's happened in the past and defended baseball's anti-steroids stance. "I believe trying to go back and dealing in hypothesis is counterproductive. I resent people suggesting we're turning a blind eye," Selig said. "The pragmatic thing we can do is deal with the present and the future. We're not going to spend a lot of time talking about the past."

Staff writer Bob Herzog and The Associated Press contributed to this story.