Wahhhhh!!!!!

Jason Giambi held a press conference yesterday, where he never specifically mentioned he took steroids (which he reportedly admitted during federal grand duty testimony, leaked to the San Francisco Cronicle), but he inferred he did something wrong which he regretted. When asked specifically about steroids, he refused to give specifics due to legal matters. Giambi is getting hammered in the press today, which is an example of the following rule:

When the press doesn’t get exactly what they want, they get pissy.

Never mind that it is against federal law to leak the grand jury testimony Giambi offered, even by Giambi. Never mind the Yankees investigated voiding the last 4 years and +$80 million of Giambi’s contract, but couldn’t because there isn’t any tangible proof Giambi did anything wrong. Never mind that; the press wanted their pound of flesh, and when they didn’t get exactly what they wanted, they lashed out.

This isn’t about steroids. It is about arrogance. Listen to Jay Mariotti on Around The Horn sometimes. If you took a shot of Jagermeister every time he said ‘(sports figure) needs to prove to me…’, you would be dead of alcohol poisoning by the time Pardon The Interruption came on. When I watch (and I don’t watch the show much these days) and he says that, I scream at the television screen ‘No they don’t! Who the hell are you?’

When I was in high school, I loved to read Mike Lupica’s column in the Daily News. As I got older, I soured on his sports=morality play aspect of his writing. By the way, he moved from the News to the short lived National, to Newsday and back to the Daily News. Remember that the next time he complains about an athlete moving from one team to another for money. And I dare you to get through one of his heavy handed, cliché filled fictional novels. House painters don’t use strokes as heavy as Lupica does on character development.

Not all sports columnists are arrogant pricks. But enough of them are to annoy me.