“Baseball is the greatest topic of conversation America has produced,” wrote George Will. Jason Giambi has thrust himself front and center in that conversation, as America is both aghast and cynical about the revelations of steroid use in baseball. And while some appear to be supportive of the former MVP, it seems more are hoping that his slide from MVP to cheating, scandalous .250 hitter continues to a final destination of, perhaps, former baseball player/Gym owner.

If you can stomach the tragedy, tragic figures are fascinating. It’s a veritable Happy Meal of fame, self-destruction and regret. The final destination—regret–is the most excruciating. It is self-torture at it worst, insanity at its purest: the fallen hero sits alone in their own head, as the projector replays over and over again the moment when things went bad. Regret is a hungry, consuming parasite, the flesh-eating bacteria of all emotions. It is likely devouring murderer Scott Petersen right now. This is his true, deserved, punishment, and it will probably last 10 years. In his case, relief is provided only by death.

But for Jason Giambi, a good man who’s made a huge mistake, regret must fuel rehabilitation, not to survive as a baseball player, but to survive as Jason Giambi. His journey back does not begin in the weight room, it begins in the mirror.

I don’t fault Giambi for all the times he took steroids, just the first time. That’s when he very knowingly made a wrong decision. It’s a slippery slope after that. I’m sure the rationalizations took many forms: everyone else is doing it; I need this to be competitive; I’ll stop if it gets out of hand. Understood. But Giambi must own the first time. It’s his forever. And when he owns it like it’s a part of his DNA, that’s when he starts back.

Only time will provide proof for the skeptics, who will have every legitimate reason to laugh at any positive rhetoric that Giambi throws at us in spring training. Whatever the outcome, it will be a year that Giambi will always remember. Hitting a tumbling baseball traveling at 95 MPH is hard, but it will be a different challenge entirely when it’s attempted in front of 60,000 human beings who believe you betrayed them.

What does Giambi do? He once said this to The Sporting News…

“I don’t think there are many 11-year-olds taking batting practice for fun, but that’s what I did all the time. And I never went on summer vacation. I was always playing on a team, but I never felt like I was missing out. That was exactly what I wanted to do.”

Giambi must become a boy who loves baseball again. He needs to remember what it felt like to be 11, and what the game meant to him. And quietly, either on the bench or in the field, he needs to show that to us. He needs to accept the inevitable viciousness, doff his cap, and get cups of water for Tino Martinez. He needs to dive, he needs to crawl, he needs to charge the mound. The only thing that is important right now, is that Jason Giambi shows us who he truly is. Perhaps homeruns by the dozen will bring forgiveness from some. But for those with longer memories, those who’ve been forced to have awkward conversations with their teenage sons about steroids, more is required. We want Jason Giambi to show us he’s learned.

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