April 27

OAKLAND -- 1:45 p.m. PT. Jason Giambi had returned home to the A's clubhouse, only he had to stand outside. He had shaken hands with security guards on the way in, and was in the hallway talking with traveling secretary Mickey Morabito, clubhouse man Steve Vucinich and a guard. One by one, players came in through the hall or came out of the clubhouse to greet him ... Frank Menechino, Mark Mulder, Eric Chavez and, finally, in an embrace, his brother Jeremy.

	During the Yankees' three-game series in Oakland earlier this week, Jason Giambi had four hits and three RBI.

"I've never gone in that door down the hall," said Jason. "This is different. It's nice to be back. It's nice to see all the people who were so good to me all these years."

It was 1:45 local time, and inside the home clubhouse, more than half the A's players were already in.

"There aren't many teams like this," said Menechino, who has replaced Jason as Frat Chairman. "We really like being together, that's why we're all here so early, every day. We hang together. We eat together. After games, we hang together. On planes, most teams have headset rules, and guys by themselves. Not here. We have no headsets. We have the music going, a bunch of card games going.

"When David Justice first started taking planes with us, he had his headset, the way he would have with the Yankees; after one trip, he had them off."

Billy Koch, Mike Colangelo and a handful of other players are chipping golf balls across the clubhouse in the direction of a box. There is a card game. Some players watch television. The music is blaring. Barry Zito enters wearing a camouflage shirt, and one person after another yells, "Anyone seen Barry?"

"It is a fraternity house," said Scott Hatteberg. "There are even five guys who live together just because they like it that way." Included in the five are Mulder and Chavez.

Wednesday afternoon, while Jason was being interviewed on the field for Yankees television (the YES Network), Menechino snuck up and slammed a plate of shaving cream in his face. "This team will do anything Frankie says we should do," says Mulder.

And after the A's game on Friday against the White Sox, Menechino slammed another plate of shaving cream into the face of Terrence Long, who was doing a postgame show at the time. So, on Saturday the A's players got the A's TV people to make sure Menechino was the star of the game (he hit the last of four homers in the third inning in a 16-1 rout), and when analyst Ray Fosse asked him if he were worried about Billy Koch getting him with shaving cream, Menechino laughed. Seconds later, Koch came out of nowhere to nail Menechino with the plate of shaving cream.

"Notice," said Menechino, "my sunglasses never went off. That is cool. That's about the only cool thing I've ever done."

Said Chavez: "The other thing that's so good here is that anyone can and will say anything to anyone else."

Menechino and Justice get on Miguel Tejada about his concentration. "Are you hurt? Is that what's wrong?" Tejada then yelled at Menechino Tuesday night after he made an out.

"It's a big jump from this place to the Yankees," says Jeremy. "Jason knew it would be a transition. He'll be fine."

"When Jason walks into the visiting clubhouse, it's a totally different world," says Mike Thalblum, who runs the visiting team's clubhouse at the Network Associates Coliseum. "It's not like anything else in baseball. It's not the players; the Yankees are great guys. It's just that because they're the Yankees, they've got this huge entourage."

Put it this way -- the A's finally hired a bullpen catcher named Brian Buckley at the end of spring training, which takes the heat off either Greg Myers or Ramon Hernandez, whichever catcher isn't in the game at the time. "This," said one A's coach, who was setting up some game preparation on the back of a framed picture ("Oakland portable desks," he says), "was a very big thing here. A bullpen coach and a BP pitcher all in one?"

The Yankees have a right-handed batting practice pitcher and a left-handed BP pitcher in their traveling party. They have two security men. They have two trainers and two masseurs, who keep one of the A's clubhouse workers tied up pulling towels out of the dryers. The media party numbers two dozen, from writers to TV and radio people. After games, more than half the players dress in either the players lounge or the trainer's room. "Hey," said Jason, "traveling with the Yankees is like traveling with a rock band. Go down in the lobby and there are hundreds of people waiting for us."

Rondell White says traveling with Jeter is like traveling with the Beatles; the difference is that on the Monday off night in San Francisco, Jeter took a half-dozen new teammates and young players out to dinner.

Jason's return to Oakland
For days, the Bay Area media had hyped Giambi's return. As the Yankees began batting practice on Tuesday, a small group of fans, holding signs, shouted at Giambi. It worsened during the game, then on Wednesday night -- before a sellout crowd of more than 54,000 on Dollar Seat Night, which attracts what the players call "Raider Fans" -- it got pretty ugly.

"It wasn't that bad, at least it wasn't obscene," said Jason. "Really. It could have been a lot worse."

It was enough to bring tears to his mother's eyes; his father, John, moved back and forth from the A's side to the Yankees side, depending on which of his sons' teams was at bat. Jason actually collected some of the phony $30 million bills (the difference between the Yankees and Oakland offers) for humor, and the Yankees security people said that while some threats were made, they were slight, and that, in fact, the early-season series in Boston was the most obscene and most frightening.

	“	I did love it here (in Oakland). I also realize that there's a lot about my coming back here that seems unfair. I appreciate it. But signing with the Yankees was a dream come true once I knew I wasn't going to stay with the A's. ”
		— Jason Giambi

Because of the last two thrilling postseason series between the Yankees and A's, this has become one of the American League's three best rivalries. "I think that has something to do with the way people feel, because here we are the small-market A's and Jason went to the big Yankees," said Jeremy. "But who could blame him?"

Well, the fans did. But in the din of the first two nights, somehow it had been forgotten that Jason Giambi is a Yankee because Oakland owner Steve Schott preferred that to having him remain with the A's. Back in spring training, 2001, Giambi and agent Arn Tellem offered the A's a six-year, $90 million deal, but wanted a one year no-trade clause to prevent Schott from dumping him somewhere like Detroit or Milwaukee. Schott refused, apparently knowing it would kill the deal.

Members of the media asked Giambi why he never said goodbye. "I never really had a chance," he answered. Then he was asked about why he thought he had a better chance to win with the A's, when they were so close to beating New York. "Because they let Jason Isringhausen and Johnny Damon go as well. It's obvious."

Management does this. The Red Sox owners used local media to cover themselves when Roger Clemens left for Toronto, masking the fact that Clemens had let it be known he would take four years and $18 million, so owner John Harrington offered $10 million total for four years and let his parrots go after the winningest pitcher in that franchise's history. The Chicago White Sox never made an offer to Robin Ventura until he had two four-year, $32 million packages on the table, then offered a three-year, $18 million deal and tried to make Ventura out as the bad guy.

Oh yes. On Tuesday night, Giambi ruined Tim Hudson's one-hitter, battling from an 0-2 count to 3-and-2 before hitting a double up the left-center gap preceding Jorge Posada's game-winning two-run homer. On Wednesday, Giambi singled in the Yankees' first run in the first inning, then in the seventh, after the A's battled back to tie at 5-5, he doubled in the game-winning runs.

"I did love it here," said Jason. "I also realize that there's a lot about my coming back here that seems unfair. I appreciate it. But signing with the Yankees was a dream come true once I knew I wasn't going to stay with the A's."

It is unfair. The fact that the A's were in a far tougher division two years ago meant they had to use Hudson on the last day of the season and use Gil Heredia twice against New York, whose pitching was set up because second-place Boston had quit on Sept. 11. Last year, the Jeter back-handed toss cost them a sweep.

Now Oakland has a listed payroll of $40 million, but that includes Justice's $7 million, of which they're paying only $3 million. So, in reality, the A's are paying this team less than MLB is paying the Expos ($38.7 million); only the Devil Rays have a lower payroll. Look at the difference between the $130 million Yankees and the A's:

Oakland		New York
$4.52 million	starting rotation	$41.5 million
$20 million	starting lineup	$60.5 million
$8.5 million	bullpen	$18.7 million
0	traveling masseurs	2

Jeremy escapes Jason's shadow
"The best thing about my leaving," says Jason, "is that it has allowed Jeremy to become himself. That means a lot."

"It was the best thing that ever happened to Jeremy," says Menechino. "It was a wakeup call. He stopped having to worry about three-run homers or being the brother. He got himself in great shape and look where he is now."

After three months at the Athletes Performance Institute in Tempe, Ari., with the likes of Nomar Garciaparra, Jeremy redefined his body, lost 15 pounds, added considerable strength and a month into the season has been one of the most effective leadoff hitters in the league.

"I'm probably the only manager who has to pinch run for my leadoff hitter," says the A's Art Howe. "The A's game isn't about running. It's about counts and getting on base and scoring runs," says Jason. "So (Jeremy is) doing a great job."

An hour after Jason arrived at Network Associates Coliseum, he sat down with Jeremy for an interview. Here is the transcription:

Question: When Jason came back, was it kinda funny -- the two of you getting together again?

Jeremy: Yeah, I think it definitely was. I remember last year's spring training together. Dinners at spring training together. Come this season on the road together, on the field together. It's probably the one thing I missed the most was having him around, and being able to talk to someone all the time on the level we can as brothers, and it was kinda strange to see him.

Question: Were you two very close?

Jason: We're really close. We lived in the same house in spring training, I'd rent the house. Out here we stayed together, so there was never that time. It was weird to pick up the phone and say, "Hey we'll meet for dinner at this time," so that was a lot different since probably when he was with Kansas City and I was with the A's, that was probably the last time. We'd go to Kansas City and we'd hang out. He'd come out here, we'd hang out, but it was definitely different.

Question: What about growing up? Did you tag along behind him?

	This is the first season Jason Giambi, right, and his brother Jeremy haven't played on the same team since 1999.

Jeremy: Always. I think maybe that's why my learning curve was a little bit faster, because I got beat up by all his friends, the older guys. And they were even older than him, some of the guys he hung out with. But they let me play. I used to take my beatings in all the games -- football, basketball, baseball.

Question: When you started playing together and Jason started hitting home runs, did you at all have an identity crisis as a player?

Jeremy: I think everybody gave me the identity crisis. Oh I'm his younger brother, I'm Little G, Mini G, It was like I think they kinda placed it on me more than I want him to be MVP. I want him to make the All-Star team. I'm sure he'll be the first to tell you the same thing. But, on the other hand, they made such a big deal out of it that it made it hard to play, too.

Question: Did it make you think about, "Gees, I gotta hit three-run homers like my big brother?"

Jeremy: It was always in my head. Even though that wasn't my game, and who knows, finally this year I'm getting a chance to play every day and do things on an everyday basis, from day one.

Jason: That was always the thing I've been most proud of him about is everyone's always been so hard on him about "Oh you're not as good as your brother, you're not this, you're not that." He's always kinda taken it and he's never quit. I think some people would quit after some of the things that people would do, but he never did. He kept working hard. And this is the situation I would hope happened that I ended up leaving, being in New York, and he really stepped up. He worked out unbelievably this offseason and it's paying off, getting to play every day and he's done an incredible job. And that's probably the thing being an older brother, you'd always say, "Oh I'm so proud of my younger brother that he's come into his own. And I think this has been his opportunity to become the player he can become.

Question: What prompted you to go to the Athletes Performance Institute in the offseason?

Jeremy: I talked to Nomar and those guys and they had nothing but good things to say. I'd been with a personal trainer -- Jim Schneider, bulldog Jim -- that we both trained with for a while, and I think he got me a lot of things -- the strength. We did a lot of plyometrics and stuff, and I think in '98 when I hit .372 in Triple-A, I was in probably one of the best shapes of my career and later that year ended up making the big leagues. As I got to the big leagues, I don't know if I took it for granted or maybe I didn't take the offseason seriously as maybe I should have -- as a year-round job. I just figured this was more of a boot camp, and I needed to get my mind re-focused and I realized I can't take this for granted and I'm gonna go and let somebody kick my butt twice a day, six, seven hours a day.

Question: At first, when somebody said it's good for you to be out on your own, how did you react to that?

Jeremy: It was different. They were like, "Oh, this is your chance to step out of your brother's shadow." But maybe, if Jason was still here, if I hit 25 homers, would that ever be good enough for somebody. Would they say, "well he hit 40, why doesn't Jeremy hit 40." If I hit .300, would that be good enough, would they want me to hit .330. So he's gone. He's left a mark here. There's no question about it. He's put some unbelievable numbers up here and he's gone onto New York, and I felt like maybe this is my year to step up, get out of his shadow and show what I can do.

Question: Jason, did you ever think you'd see a Giambi hitting leadoff?

Jason: I laughed when he told me about it. I was like, "That's a spot I thought I'd never see in the box score," unless it was come in to pinch-hit late in the game, be in the leadoff spot. But being the type of ball that Oakland plays, it's take your walks, hit home runs, so they don't utilize the leadoff spot like everyone else. It's not really that big key. But the thing that he does so well is he takes his walks, he hits to all fields, he scores runs. That's technically what you want a leadoff hitter to do because if you got a guy that's as fast as the wind but never gets on, what good is it? So it's a perfect situation if you really look up and down their lineup. It's a perfect situation that he hits there because he has a good eye, and he can hit the ball to all fields for a high average, and he's gonna hit his home runs. It's actually working out great for him.

Question: Do you believe it's really good for Jeremy to be his own self?

Jason: Oh definitely. I've seen a lot of big changes where just taking the initiative and becoming a better player. Really wanting to become a better player. I think I'd always had that in myself, pushing myself to become the player I've become, but I've always said if you look at his minor-league numbers and things like that, he's got more talent than I've got. I just willed myself to be good because I wanted to be the best player. I always played a lot more with a little heart. He always had that talent in there and I'd always try to tell him, "You got it. It's there. I've seen it in the minor leagues. I've seen you play a lot of years." He's got it there. He's finally letting it come out, give himself a chance, and that's the exciting thing -- to look from afar to watch this all happen.

Yankees are the real winners
"What people don't understand about Jason is that he is such a nice person, so sensitive, so careful about being respectful to people that a lot of this here does bother him," said Menechino. "He is a great teammate. He is still a big part of what the Oakland Athletics have become. No one here wishes him anything but the best."

The Yankees, in a stretch Don Zimmer says "is one of the keys to the season, because playing Oakland and Seattle for two weeks we can't afford to get eight or nine games behind the Red Sox, because they're that good," won two out of three in Oakland, one on El Duque Hernandez's brilliant performance. Zito beat Mike Mussina Thursday afternoon, but Roger Clemens opened the Mariners series in Safeco with a shutout.

"The focus right now is on me," said Jason. "When the real focus should always be on our pitching. It's unbelievable seeing one star after another go to the mound."

All of which is one reason the Yankees are where they are, every year, and Jason Giambi is where he is.