'Stuff' = Steroids? Giambi May Pay

May 20, 2007 — -- Jason Giambi might lose his spot on the the Yankees' roster if it's determined he used performance-enhancing drugs, according to a published report.

Citing unnamed sources, The New York Daily News reported Sunday that the Yankees will consider voiding Giambi's contract if it's determined he used steroids after they signed Giambi as a free agent in 2001.

Major League Baseball intends to investigate reported remarks by Giambi that the sport should apologize for use of performance-enhancing drugs and the Yankees star's comment that he was "wrong for doing that stuff."

According to The Daily News, what Giambi says in his expected meeting with Major League Baseball will likely determine whether the Yankees decide to try to get out of what's remaining of the seven-year, $120 million contract they gave Giambi in 2001.

Rob Manfred, executive vice president for labor relations in the commissioner's office, spoke Friday with Yankees president Randy Levine about the matter, a baseball official with knowledge of the conversation said, speaking on condition of anonymity because baseball officials didn't want the matter publicly discussed.

"I was wrong for doing that stuff," Giambi was quoted as saying in Friday's editions of USA Today. "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 said.

Giambi told a grand jury during the BALCO investigation in December 2003 that he used steroids and human growth hormone, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in December 2004. Before the start of spring training in 2005, Giambi made repeated general apologies at a news conference but wouldn't discuss whether he used steroids or admitted to the grand jury in 2003 that he did.