Giambi back at it: 'I feel really good right now'

"He's a major-league player, it's hard to judge in the spring," general manager Brian Cashman said. "If he has a phenomenal spring, that doesn't mean he'll have a phenomenal season. And if he has a poor spring, that doesn't mean he'll have a poor season."

A short while later, manager Joe Torre indicated he may have a good idea how Giambi will fare early in the spring -- like six or eight games into the Grapefruit League schedule.

"He doesn't necessarily have to get a hit to tell us anything," Torre said. "The quality of the at-bats are more important than the batting average."

The clear answer: Who knows?

The most important things for Giambi and the Yankees now concern the first baseman's emotional and physical health. On his first day in camp, both appeared super-glued back together.

Giambi's locker is opposite the entrance of the clubhouse, meaning he must traverse the entire room before getting dressed. As he walked through the room Monday morning, he stopped by the lockers of several teammates for hugs and handshakes. He said several have phoned him recently to lend their support, including Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada. Their general message, according to Giambi: "Do what you need to do and we'll be behind you."

"It's incredibly humbling, I guess," Giambi said, appearing emotional for a moment. "You look at this clubhouse, they're not only great teammates and great players, they're great people. I understand totally the position they're in. For them to voice their support is incredible."

He also said his physical maladies from last season are completely gone. The flu, the intestinal parasite, the pituitary gland tumor. It also was the first time he publicly acknowledged the pituitary gland tumor, so put another notch in the "cleansing the soul" category. Though he and the club finally admitted last summer that Giambi had a tumor, they went to great lengths to keep its location secret, ostensibly because a pituitary tumor is said to sometimes be exacerbated by steroid use.

"I feel really good right now," he said. "I've been going through two-a-day workouts, running and throwing and hitting in the mornings and lifting in the afternoons. I feel confident."

Though Giambi did not work out at the Yankees complex here Monday -- the first full-squad workout is scheduled for Tuesday -- he did step onto the field and sign autographs for 30 minutes or so off the side of the dugout in mid-morning. Fan feedback was the same, he says, as whenever he's been recognized in public over the winter: Pleasantly positive.

However, he also knows this test audience was stacked. Yankees fans are going to be more supportive -- at least unless his numbers drop into last year's range (.208 average, 12 homers, 40 RBI in 80 games). It will be wholly different, though, when he's playing in Boston, or Chicago, or Baltimore.

"I know rough days are coming, and I'm not going to shy away from them," he said.

He looked bigger than he did last spring, noticeable because Giambi was shockingly smaller a year ago here, almost as if he had shriveled up over the winter. But he also turned 34 last month, the MVP award he won in 2000 seems generations ago, and there is serious doubt about whether, after everything he's been through, he can ever again be the player he once was.

"I'm working my ass off to get back to that spot," Giambi said.

Even then, there are no guarantees.

Dwight Gooden, in camp as a spring instructor, probably comes as close as anyone with the Yankees to having gone through what Giambi is about to face. Gooden battled drug problems during his career and was suspended by commissioner Bud Selig in September 1994 for the rest of that season and all of 1995 because of that. When he came back, he faced a spotlight similar in some ways to the one that will keep Giambi on the griddle for a long time.

"I think, at first, it might be a little tough, but as the days go on and he keeps showing his face and being himself. ..." Gooden said. "The numbers, I think, will take care of themselves. He's still a great player, no doubt about that."

Actually, there is doubt about that. Serious doubt. Which is why, in the end, the bottom line with Giambi will be on the field. Hit, and he's fine. Slump, and he's done.

"Everybody who has been named, whether it be Jason or Barry or anybody that was named in (Jose) Canseco's book, I think everybody is going to look at and have a question because the name was connected with steroids," Torre said the other day.

True. But so far, Giambi is the only sure thing. He is the only one who has admitted juicing, and while we have our suspicions of the others, it's Giambi who is the lab rat in these early days of the spring.