The New York Times reports that the Yankees were so desperate to sign Jason Giambi to a contract that they deleted references to steroids in the guarantee language of the contract at Giambi’s request. The guarantee language in a baseball contract says things such as, “we can terminate you if you are a bad citizen or you jump out of airplanes or try to strangle your coach.” The Colorado Rockies terminated Denny Neagle’s 19 million dollar contract after police arrested him for solicitating a prostitute. Neagles’ grievance against termination will be held in April.

The article shows an image of Giambi wearing a suit designed to make him look as big as possible. Do baseball uniforms come with padded shoulders I wonder?

The Yankees have the same problem as major league baseball, and the players who took steroids. They made a deal with the devil. The players made a deal with the devil because they are likely to suffer long term health problems from taking the steroids. The Yankees made a deal with the devil and now they are now strapped with a 120 million dollar contract for a questionable player. Baseball made a deal with the devil by turning a blind eye to steroid use so they could reap benefits from the season home run record. Now they will likely have a new record for career home runs set by an admitted steroid user: Barry Bonds.

By the way, doesn’t a contract have to be reviewed by the league before it is signed? O.k., so steroids were not illegal in Major League Baseball when Giambi did them. But they were according to the government else there would be no Balco investigation. And clearly steroids were included in the guarantee language otherwise there was no need to delete them.

It’s not just the players who have totally lost face. The teams themselves and the league look just as bad.