On the whole, the press grumbled about Juicin' Giambi's weird apology session. Murray Chass of the New York Times wrote an artcile alleging that the Yankees were somewhat foolish in removing a clause about steroids from Giambi's contract back in 2001. That artcile is now mysteriously not on the NY Times site. Instead, there's this article.
The Yankees were stung by the suggestion that they should have known what they were getting when they signed Giambi because they agreed to his agent's request to delete references to steroids in the guarantee language of the contract.
Guarantee language is designed to protect a club by prohibiting players from engaging in certain activities that could be hazardous to their health. If a club sends a draft of guarantee language to a player's representative and the representative sends it back with the word steroids crossed out, it would not be farfetched to think that someone should be suspicious. But, the Yankees said, it wasn't like that.
"There were at least 20 changes made," Trost said in reference to the guarantee-language provision in Giambi's contract. On the telephone a day earlier, Trost said he couldn't discuss Giambi's contract specifically. On this call, he discussed it specifically.
"Our contracts cover things in different ways," he said, batting second. "There is a provision in his contract that says he will not be paid if he uses or abuses any illegal substances. The idea that we removed steroids is so far from the truth. The word steroids that was taken out was illustrative," he said. In other words, Trost was saying that the word was meant to be part of a contract provision aimed at substances including but not limited to steroids. Nevertheless, the word steroids was in the original draft of the Giambi contract and then taken out, and the Yankees are not denying that.
Rubenstein suggested that the Yankees fax copies of the relevant pages of the contract to me so that I could see what they were talking about. They couldn't do that, they said; the contract was confidential. Then read the relevant paragraphs, Rubenstein suggested.
So Trost read two paragraphs, or parts of paragraphs, of the guarantee language dealing with elements that could deprive Giambi of his salary. That is what a guarantee-exclusion provision is - a list of activities (sky diving, for example) that would render a contract void if a player could not play as the result of one of those activities.
Last winter, Aaron Boone hurt his knee playing basketball, a prohibited activity in his guarantee language, and the Yankees later released him, paying him only one sixth of his contract.
In Giambi's contract, he would not be paid, for example, if he couldn't play because of physical impairment or mental incapacity "directly due to or approximately caused by" a series of circumstances including "the intentional use or abuse of any type of illegal substance."
After completing his reading, Trost remarked, "To say we didn't cover steroids is
absolutely fallacious."
Right. You'd think so, given that most punters thought the biggest muscle-bound sluggers were most likely on steroids at the time. The issue wasn't that steroids weren't there; the issue was that the MLB and the MLBPA were really, really really soft on performance enhancing drugs, and only now are they tightening up, squeazing the Yankees in the process. Then there's this article at NJ.com:
And then there's this in the updated Chass article:Yankees general manager Brian Cashman came out swinging yesterday in response to an article in yesterday's editions of The New York Times that said that the Yankees, in their zeal to sign Jason Giambi, removed, at the first baseman's request, all references to steroids from the guaranteed language of the contract before signing him to a seven-year, $120 million deal in 2001.
"That's a lot of bull. It's hogwash. It's not true," Cashman said in one of his three appearances on ESPN Radio "You don't invest this kind of money if that were the case. You back off and walk away."
But another Yankees executive, chief operating officer Lonn A. Trost, said changes were made to the contract regarding the language concerning steroids. But Trost, who drafted the contract and called the Times report "misinformation," said that those changes that were made gave more protection to the Yankees than they did to Giambi.
The wording was changed, he said, but not in the manner indicated in The Times article.
"Partial truth and half truths and incorrect statements always cause problems," Trost said. "The fact of the matter is we had a number of paragraphs that dealt with this subject matter. And there must have been 50 changes in those paragraphs before we finalized. "Was the word 'steroid' removed as one of the changes? Absolutely. Why it was removed was foolish on their part and not on our part."
"Clearly," Levine said, "there is language in this contract that would provide the Yankees a basis to go forward, if we so desired to, in any action against our player." But, he added, based on Giambi's comments in his meeting with team executives, "We decided to give him a second opportunity at this point in time, to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"However, Levine further added, "No one has waived any rights or claims." If Giambi does not live up to what he has told the Yankees, "there is a basis for going forward."
Tellem declined yesterday to discuss Giambi's contract or the negotiations that produced it. What he did talk about was the good working relationship he said he had "with the entire Yankee front office."
"Our focus right now," he added, "is on doing everything we can together to support Jason so that he can come back and be the player that everyone hoped and expecte he would be when he came here and lead the Yankees to the World Series."
So in other words, it doesn't mean the Yankees are getting out of the onerous contract (onerous, only if Giambi does not bounce back) because they can't; it's because they're choosing to wait and see; Sending a strong message to Juicin' Giambi that he has to bounce back or else. The Press conference wasn't aboutPR or truth or apolgies; it was about Giambi being made to eat humble pie in public.
Tough Talk indeed.
- Art Neuro
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