Jason Giambi Opines About "The Yankee Years"

From Lisa Guerrero:

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."

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