Maybe Giambi will tell all he knows about ‘that stuff’

With all the talking Jason Giambi has done over the years — to grand juries and to full-color newspapers and now to New York Yankees and Major League Baseball officials — you’d think by now he would have also spoken to the notorious Mitchell investigators.

Or at least been put on their schedule.

That, you’d think, is why the Mitchell folks exist, and this seems to be a fastball down the middle for them. But it hasn’t happened yet. Which probably tells you all you need to know about the priorities of all involved. And what aren’t their priorities.

Everything that has happened since Giambi talked about taking “that stuff” in USA Today last week, points to him being punished for coming clean about steroids.

Nothing indicates that the sport is examining the rest of Giambi’s remarks — that baseball needs to apologize and atone for its actions.

Nothing gives the impression that it sees the value Giambi and his newfound honesty have to an investigative group that can’t get players to talk to it, and has little to work with outside of the documents from already-concluded court cases.

May cut a deal

Maybe in the week or two that Commissioner Bud Selig says will elapse before any decision is made from his meeting with Giambi last week, they can cut a deal that will allow Giambi to really tell what he knows. Not just about himself and his habits. About everybody. From players, coaches, trainers and clubhouse boys to owners and team and baseball officials.

A deal that will produce some depth, some truth, some answers, connected to that other part of Giambi’s remarks.

A deal that probably — rightfully — should include full immunity. Or, at worst, partial immunity, with a fine or a short suspension.

Going the opposite way does nothing but scapegoat Giambi at the expense of all his enablers throughout the sport.

The good news there is that Barry Bonds will finally have company. Gotta be tough for him to be the sole villain in all this, to be propped up as the Typhoid Mary of today’s needle-ball. Well, skooch on over, Barry, here comes Jason. ‘Bout time.

The bad news is that baseball still gets away with it, can still say, “It’s just those two.” Thus, they call him to the principal’s office and shake their heads sorrowfully at the “leak” of Giambi’s failed amphetamines test.

Only two made public

It’s surely a total coincidence, by the way, that since the ban on stimulants was put in place, the only players whose positives tests have become public are Giambi and Bonds. Confidentiality? That’s for suckers.

Most annoying, though, is the Yankees’ latest attempt to weasel out of their contract with Giambi, as if they are shocked to hear that he might have been using back in his Most Valuable Player days in Oakland.

It remains to be seen whether baseball will demand its pound of tattooed flesh from Giambi. It appears to be digging around for a rule that Giambi might have violated in his admission.

At some point, chances are that they’ll find one — the rule that forbids players from embarrassing the sport by acknowledging how complicit it is in the mess that made Giambi, and the rest of the game, rich and successful.

It’s worth noting here that Giambi is no hero, only when compared to the suits trying to pin him down. He made his choices, and apparently only cared about how long he could get away with them.

Yes, someone should have put up some resistance to him and his usage long ago, but he and his integrity should have been the first line of defense.

XDavid Steele is a columnist for The Baltimore Sun.