So the Yankees are said to be exploring their options with regard to voiding sweaty slugger Jason Giambi’s contract after his roundabout confession to using “that stuff” and opining that baseball should apologize for everyone else’s injection or ingestion of it.

Other than the warm, fuzzy jackass presently polluting McCovey Cove with cowhide, Giambi is everyone’s favorite scapegoat for the Steroid Era. Easy to understand why. It’s flagrantly obvious that if Giambi were born 20 years earlier, he would be Johnny Grubb. At best, Keith Hernandez.

But really, who deserves immunity from the microscope? Funny that the self-appointed gatekeepers never speak ill of Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez or Carlos Delgado. Apparently, you’re a suspect only if you’ve gained 50 pounds from your rookie card or gone on the disabled list with a tapeworm.

Conveniently, now that Giambi is buried in a 2-for-28 slump and no longer resembles Comeback Player of the Millennium, the sub-.500 Yankees could alienate him like the drunk uncle at a wedding reception.

That would be the typical, classy move for the most pretentious, selectively moral business enterprise on the planet. Johnny Damon and Randy Johnson were expected to cut their hair. Steve Howe, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry all were given ample opportunity to resurrect their narcotic-fueled careers in the Bronx. Now, Giambi expresses buyer’s remorse and his team might do the same. Gutless.

– The University of Maine needs to hire Cindy Blodgett as its next women’s basketball coach.

Blodgett probably wields the leanest resume of Maine’s four announced finalists for the position. But two years of mediocrity under Ann McInerney and a relatively bare cupboard demand more than a flavor-of-the-month assistant or someone with head coaching experience at Southeast Catatonic State to right the ship.

Maine needs to hit a box office home run here, lest its second most celebrated athletic program of the last decade fade into annual, sixth-place in America East oblivion. That wouldn’t merely hurt the university. It would set back girls’ and women’s basketball as an entity in a state that has embraced it better than most.

Cindy Blodgett is Maine basketball. She wrote the script. Let’s see what she can do with the sequel.

– Blogger of the Day goes to Walter, who had this to say in defense of Maine baseball after my gloomy reminiscence on Sunday: “I agree that the University of Maine baseball program has drifted far from where it was Coach Steve Trimper is a good man and has been charged with improving baseball in Maine and ensuring that talented ballplayers stay in Maine You will see improvements soon.”

I’ll hold him to it. If you wish to call me out, call me names or call me God’s gift to the blogosphere, follow Walter and click on the link in the lower left corner of the home page at www.sunjournal.com.

Copy the Story Link