Do It For Us Jason……

by Trevor Freeman

Mike:  Are you calling to rub it in?

Trevor:  Don’t sing it…………bring it……..
I’ll be quite honest.  I still can’t think rationally when his name pops up.  When Joe Montana was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs……..it hurt.  But when Jason Giambi signed with the New York Yankees it tore the hymen of my sports virginity.  Jason Giambi will forever be the high school girlfriend that ripped my heart out.  He’s the childhood friend that stabbed me in the back and moved up to the “Cool Kids” table.  I remember chanting M-V-P, M-V-P, M-V-P every time he strode to the plate for an entire summer.  Before he donned the Empire’s pinstripes he was once king of the three-run Jimmy Jack.  He was once the leader of our clubhouse.  He was once an Oakland A.  

It took five years but that old lady named Fate has finally intervened and she is so close to giving us the ALCS that every Oakland fan has been dying for.  If there is right in the world…..if there is a sports god…….then the resurgent Jason Gilbert Giambi will finally square off against the organization that gave him life.

Being an A’s fan means getting used to seeing players come and go.  That’s just the way it works in The Town.  Billy Beane treats the team like he treats his stock portfolio.  He is constantly looking to buy low and sell high.  We know this and have improvised over time.  Instead of buying replica jerseys we buy T-Shirts with the team’s logo on it.  Instead of having an attachment to a player, we have one to our General Manager.  Instead of being disappointed that we have no chance to sign Barry Zito, we talk ourselves into the “Hawaiian Punch-Out” (Shane Komine) and move along our merry way.

Jason Giambi was different though.  We fell into the trap of loving a great athlete.  We let ourselves believe that he cared more about us than he did about the money.  We believed that he would give us a hometown discount.  We thought being a member of the Oakland A’s mattered to him.

If you took all the hours of my life I spent searching message boards and reading random “Giambi is willing to give a hometown discount” articles, it would equal the entire summer of 2000.  From 1999-2001, Jason Giambi was the Bay Area’s mayor.  We chanted M-V-P, bought him beers, let him have sex with our girlfriends………..okay maybe not so much that last one, but you get my drift.  He could do no wrong in any of our eyes.  The way we loved him as a ballplayer and as a human being was unconditional.  He was the leader of our frat pack.

December 13, 2001 is a date that will live in infamy.  For it was on that date that Jason Giambi donned pinstripes.  While the switching teams stung, that wasn’t the dagger that makes Giambi the object of our wrath.  That’s not the reason the mayor of Lafayette’s son was winging a beer at him a year ago.  The night Jason Giambi sold his soul to the Empire; he went on David Letterman and uttered his “Top 10 Reasons for leaving Oakland”.  It was the moment that the words, “Have you ever been to Oakland” came out of his mouth that I along with the rest of the Bay Area turned on him.  The disappointment of his turning down the A’s 6 year $91 million dollar offer to go play with the Yankees turned to anger.  What he did to us would be the equivalent of a longtime girlfriend breaking your heart after five years of dating and then proceeding to post on her myspace page that you have a small penis.  

I was talking to my friend Chia after the A’s beat the Twins in Game Two.  He said, “You gotta be rooting for the Tigers right”?  I responded with an emphatic “NO”.  They say that you shouldn’t ask for something because you just might get it.  Well you know what……….I’d like to throw caution to the wind.  I’d like to get down on my knees and pray that Jason Giambi and the Yankees pull it out against the Motor City.  I want Jason Giambi to come to the Oakland Coliseum and pay for the way he pulled a Benedict Arnold on everybody who believed him.

Jason Giambi told us on Letterman that we could go stick it……..hopefully we get the chance to tell him and his Yankees that they can go stick it……….  

The BoogieDown versus Oaktown.

Murderer’s Row and Cano versus The Big Hurt.

Giambi versus A’s.

It’s been five years in the making……………let’s get it on.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].