Giambi could talk to Mitchell for steroid probe

June 15, 2007

NEW YORK — Lawyers for the baseball players' union and the commissioner's office are discussing ways to bring about a meeting between Jason Giambi and steroids investigator George Mitchell.

The talks were expected to extend into the weekend and possibly next week, a person familiar with negotiations said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said June 6 that he wanted Giambi to meet with Mitchell within two weeks and to cooperate fully with the steroids investigation. Selig threatened to discipline the New York Yankees designated hitter following published remarks by Giambi that seemed to be an admission of steroids use. Selig said he would take Giambi's cooperation with Mitchell into account in determining discipline.

Any suspension or fine would be challenged by the players' association, which says Selig doesn't have "just cause" under baseball's labor contract to penalize Giambi. Based on precedent, there is a reasonable likelihood an arbitrator would overturn any discipline.

"I am not ready to say anything yet," Giambi's agent, Arn Tellem, said in an e-mail Thursday. "I might have something early next week."

In December 2003, Giambi told a federal grand jury he used steroids and human growth hormone, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in December 2004. Before the start of spring training in 2005, he made repeated general apologies at a news conference but never said what he was apologizing for.

Giambi's latest troubles began May 18, when the former AL MVP was quoted in USA Today as saying: "I was wrong for doing that stuff. What we should have done a long time ago was stand up — players, ownership, everybody — and said: 'We made a mistake.' We should have apologized back then and made sure we had a rule in place and gone forward. ... Steroids and all of that was a part of history. But it was a topic that everybody wanted to avoid. Nobody wanted to talk about it."

He met five days later with three attorneys for the commissioner's office, accompanied by his lawyer, his agent and a union lawyer.

Baseball and its union didn't ban steroids until September 2002 and didn't institute penalties for a first offense in most cases until 2005.