In 2009 Jason Giambi was released from the A’s and was signed to a minor league contract. After 6 games in the minor leagues, he was called up to the Rockies for the first of four-season s with the team. I saw one of those 6 games he played for the Colorado Springs Sky Sox. I remember because I didn’t know before the game that the Rockies had signed Giambi. I mentioned this to my wife, and she asked why I was so excited to see him play. Then I tried to explain while Giambi was batting. I didn’t want to say he was a future hall of famer because of the steroid issue. I mentioned something about him being an all-star player and having played for the A’s and the Yankees. My wife had gone to some A’s games before she met me.
I didn’t know how good he was with the Sky Sox until I just looked it up. He hit .444 with two homeruns. I must have gone to one of the early games. I didn’t think his swing looked that great. However, late in the game he hit a double.
A few years later we went and watched the movie Moneyball. My wife and daughter actually enjoyed the movie. I think for my wife having Brad Pitt in the movie helped. Jason Giambi was mentioned early in the movie as the player they were going to be replaced with three players. I’m sure my wife didn’t recall watching Giambi bat in the minor leagues when his name was bought up in the movie.
When preparing for this article I was thinking about Jason Giambi’s Hall of fame chances. He has 50 WAR which certainly not great. However, he had some great prime years two of which he had on base averages of at least .475 and slugged over .640. And that was in Oakland. However, Giambi doesn’t get in the discussion at all. One problem is that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemons were a lot better players than him. There is no way he will be elected until they are elected. It would be to hypocritical to elect Giambi despite using steroids, when two obviously better players haven’t been elected because they used steroids. This is what happened. Giambi got only 6 votes or 1.5 percent of the ballots in his only election. He was taken off the ballot as he didn’t obtain the minimal figure of 5 percent to stay on the ballot.
