NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
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</TD></TR><TR><TD>[size=-1]From spending nights at the Hard Rock Cafe or Palms Casino to lifting at Gold's Gym to living in a posh community in Henderson, Nev., Jason Giambi got the most out of Las Vegas' fast lifestyle. [/size]</TD></TR><TR><TD width=10 height=10><!-- /images/shim.gif --></TD></TR><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD>[size=-1][/size]</TD></TR><TR><TD width=10 height=10><!-- /images/shim.gif --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- Component: NYDailyNews : component/story/picture.comp -->LAS VEGAS - It is about 1 a.m., technically Saturday morning, but in this town Friday night is just getting started. Inside The Palms Casino, the line of people waiting to get into Rain, currently the hot nightclub in Vegas, snakes along the wall, around the slot machines, out of sight from the entrance.
This is no Wayne Newton crowd, either. John Mayer will be playing here to a full house in a couple of nights, but tonight a deejay handles the music; the real show is the steady stream of Paris Hilton wannabes that come strutting through the door, looking for something other than a game of Texas Hold 'Em.
You can tell this is the "It" place by the army of bouncers dressed up in black, earpieces and all, prowling around the entrance. It takes seven different attempts at small talk to find one who is at least a little bit chatty on the subject of celebrity regular Jason Giambi.
"Oh, yeah, you might see him here tonight," a guy with a very thick neck says. "He's here on Fridays a lot. We usually hear if he's coming…but it's still early."
In the fantasy world of Las Vegas, maybe - Rain would be open for another four hours, after all. But in Giambi's other world, where he is paid a fortune to play baseball, you have to wonder if it's suddenly later than he could have ever imagined, three years after living out his father's own Mickey Mantle fantasy and signing that $120 million contract to become a Yankee.
The release of his grand jury testimony, which labels him as both a steroid user and a liar, not only makes Giambi the worst kind of bum as far as New York is concerned. It makes his somewhat reckless personal life, until now something of an open secret in baseball circles, fair game for public consumption.
As such, it's only fitting that Giambi lives here in the off-season, since Vegas is kind of like New York on steroids, at least when it comes to the part about the city that never sleeps.
The casinos never close, of course, and inside you can't tell if it's noon or midnight. Even the tanning salons here are open 24 hours a day, including the one right next door to the Gold's Gym where Giambi works out and allegedly bought steroids before hooking up with Barry Bonds' trainer.
Clubs like Rain, meanwhile, are open 'til 5 a.m., and from there you can move on to any number of strip joints. Well, the all-nude clubs close at 4 a.m., but the cabbies here are quick to tell you there are places all over town where you can get any kind of show you're looking for. They even slip you cards directing you toward the action, with their own referral number written on the back so they get their commission. For that matter, there are a full 116 pages in the Las Vegas Yellow Pages devoted to "Entertainers," a catchword for escort services.
In any case, there are also people here that tell you Giambi is a regular at the strip clubs, as well as the dance clubs. A former bouncer at "Club Paradise" who now works at T he Palms, while not wanting to say how often Giambi shows up, made it sound as if he knows the Yankee slugger on a personal basis.
"Great guy," the bouncer says. "He's not cheap with his money. He likes to make sure everyone around him has a good time."
Giambi, who is married, is free to spend his nights as he wishes, of course, but his lifestyle has become a public matter after a season in which he was sidelined by a mysterious parasite, then a benign tumor that neither he nor the Yankees would discuss, all of it accompanied by suspicion regarding steroids use that has now been confirmed.
Basically, it seems, his body has been breaking down ever since he became a Yankee, and whatever role steroid use and perhaps withdrawal has caused, you have to wonder if there are other factors involved, and whether he is having trouble coping mentally as well.
A friend of his in New York has told the Daily News of wild parties that Giambi has thrown in his upper East Side apartment, and that Giambi went on a two-day binge in the city after the Yankees lost to the Red Sox in the ALCS. Though Giambi has told the friend he no longer goes to bars in the city as much as he once did because Yankee fans question him about his declining performance, he offered no indication that his physical ailments have caused him to change his partying ways.
Giambi has never tried to hide his enjoyment of the nightlife. In Oakland, where he became a star as the long-haired, anti-establishment leader of the young and rowdy A's, Giambi used to have a saying that eventually became a slogan the players wore on T-shirts under their uniforms:
"Party like a rock star, hammer like a porn star, hit like an All-Star."
Those were the best of times for Giambi. He was - and still is - revered by those A's players that grew with him into a perennial contender. He was young and fearless then, a good major league hitter suddenly turned great, winning the AL MVP award in 2000, apparently with the help of steroids.
One major league scout, in fact, says the A's never considered a young Giambi as a potential power hitter. He was a skinny second baseman in high school, and even as he began to fill out in the minor leagues, the A's thought of him "as a Sean Casey-type hitter," who would hit over .300 with "moderate power and a high number of doubles," according to the scout.
But that was before Giambi came up to the A's in the mid-'90s and became a protégé of sorts to Mark McGwire, who introduced him to weightlifting and, at the very least, muscle-building supplements. No one knows for sure whether McGwire influenced Giambi in regard to illegal steroids, and the people who covered the A's then say Giambi didn't make himself noticeably bigger until 1999, more than a year after McGwire was traded to the Cardinals.
McGwire, of course, admitted to using Androstenedione, then a legal supplement, during his record-breaking home run season in 1998. In any case, Giambi clearly idolized McGwire, and those around the team then say McGwire partied hard himself after a painful divorce, which also influenced Giambi.
Still, Giambi's lifestyle never became an issue until he signed with the Yankees and stopped putting up MVP-type numbers. People who know him say that despite his apparent swagger as the A's slugger, he wasn't equipped mentally to deal with being a star in New York.
"Basically he's a California kid," says one person close to Giambi. "He wasn't prepared for that East Coast aggressiveness, or the politics that go with being a Yankee. He knew from the start that he didn't fit in there, and more than once he has told his old teammates that he made a big mistake.
"That's one of the reasons Eric Chavez, who loved Jason, signed a long-term deal to stay with the A's," says the friend. "He could have gone for more money, but he saw how happy Jason had been in Oakland, then how unhappy he was in New York. Whatever his physical problems, I don't think there's any question that Jason is breaking down emotionally. He knew the ballclub didn't think he was tough enough after he took himself out of that World Series Game (Game 5 against the Marlins), and I think that contributed to everything that happened last season."
All of which led us here to Las Vegas, looking for Giambi, and/or clues as to where he goes from here, now a confessed steroid user and a Yankee outcast.
He lives in Henderson, a suburb only a few miles south of the Strip, in a housing community that is part of Anthem Country Club. A security guard at the gatehouse called his house on Friday afternoon to tell him the Daily News requested a visit, and returned to say that "you aren't authorized to enter the grounds."
There were no Giambi sightings during two days here, either, but based on information from people who know him, it was possible to sketch out something of the late-night routine he seems to follow.
Though the manager at Gold's Gym in Henderson, the place where Giambi testified to buying Deca Durabolin in 2001, wouldn't comment on anything regarding Giambi, one of the members working out there Friday told the Daily News that he has seen Giambi work out there, "always at night."
After workouts Giambi, according to one person who knows him, often has a late-night dinner at the Tuscany Grill, a few miles up Eastern Ave. It is a small, quiet place you might call elegant, except for the video poker monitors built into the bar, and you can get chicken cacciatore right up until 1 in the morning.
From there Giambi frequently heads into Vegas, usually to the Hard Rock Café or The Palms, and he is often accompanied by his wife Kristian, his brother Jeremy, a former A's teammate who played in the minors for the Las Vegas 51s last season, and other friends. He was seen at The Palms on Tuesday night by A's traveling secretary Mickey Morabito, who told a friend that Giambi seemed to be in good spirits and gave no indication he knew he was about to get slammed with his own grand jury testimony.
How late Giambi stays out, or how hard he parties, or whether his lifestyle should be blamed in any way for his decline as a player, is all a matter of speculation. All you can say for sure is that late is early in Las Vegas.
By 2 a.m. at The Palms, there was still no sign of Giambi, and, well, it was 5 a.m. in New York. Rain was still jumping, but the search was over. For his sake, you could only hope Giambi was already asleep by then. For a change.
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This is no Wayne Newton crowd, either. John Mayer will be playing here to a full house in a couple of nights, but tonight a deejay handles the music; the real show is the steady stream of Paris Hilton wannabes that come strutting through the door, looking for something other than a game of Texas Hold 'Em.
You can tell this is the "It" place by the army of bouncers dressed up in black, earpieces and all, prowling around the entrance. It takes seven different attempts at small talk to find one who is at least a little bit chatty on the subject of celebrity regular Jason Giambi.
"Oh, yeah, you might see him here tonight," a guy with a very thick neck says. "He's here on Fridays a lot. We usually hear if he's coming…but it's still early."
In the fantasy world of Las Vegas, maybe - Rain would be open for another four hours, after all. But in Giambi's other world, where he is paid a fortune to play baseball, you have to wonder if it's suddenly later than he could have ever imagined, three years after living out his father's own Mickey Mantle fantasy and signing that $120 million contract to become a Yankee.
The release of his grand jury testimony, which labels him as both a steroid user and a liar, not only makes Giambi the worst kind of bum as far as New York is concerned. It makes his somewhat reckless personal life, until now something of an open secret in baseball circles, fair game for public consumption.
As such, it's only fitting that Giambi lives here in the off-season, since Vegas is kind of like New York on steroids, at least when it comes to the part about the city that never sleeps.
The casinos never close, of course, and inside you can't tell if it's noon or midnight. Even the tanning salons here are open 24 hours a day, including the one right next door to the Gold's Gym where Giambi works out and allegedly bought steroids before hooking up with Barry Bonds' trainer.
Clubs like Rain, meanwhile, are open 'til 5 a.m., and from there you can move on to any number of strip joints. Well, the all-nude clubs close at 4 a.m., but the cabbies here are quick to tell you there are places all over town where you can get any kind of show you're looking for. They even slip you cards directing you toward the action, with their own referral number written on the back so they get their commission. For that matter, there are a full 116 pages in the Las Vegas Yellow Pages devoted to "Entertainers," a catchword for escort services.
In any case, there are also people here that tell you Giambi is a regular at the strip clubs, as well as the dance clubs. A former bouncer at "Club Paradise" who now works at T he Palms, while not wanting to say how often Giambi shows up, made it sound as if he knows the Yankee slugger on a personal basis.
"Great guy," the bouncer says. "He's not cheap with his money. He likes to make sure everyone around him has a good time."
Giambi, who is married, is free to spend his nights as he wishes, of course, but his lifestyle has become a public matter after a season in which he was sidelined by a mysterious parasite, then a benign tumor that neither he nor the Yankees would discuss, all of it accompanied by suspicion regarding steroids use that has now been confirmed.
Basically, it seems, his body has been breaking down ever since he became a Yankee, and whatever role steroid use and perhaps withdrawal has caused, you have to wonder if there are other factors involved, and whether he is having trouble coping mentally as well.
A friend of his in New York has told the Daily News of wild parties that Giambi has thrown in his upper East Side apartment, and that Giambi went on a two-day binge in the city after the Yankees lost to the Red Sox in the ALCS. Though Giambi has told the friend he no longer goes to bars in the city as much as he once did because Yankee fans question him about his declining performance, he offered no indication that his physical ailments have caused him to change his partying ways.
Giambi has never tried to hide his enjoyment of the nightlife. In Oakland, where he became a star as the long-haired, anti-establishment leader of the young and rowdy A's, Giambi used to have a saying that eventually became a slogan the players wore on T-shirts under their uniforms:
"Party like a rock star, hammer like a porn star, hit like an All-Star."
Those were the best of times for Giambi. He was - and still is - revered by those A's players that grew with him into a perennial contender. He was young and fearless then, a good major league hitter suddenly turned great, winning the AL MVP award in 2000, apparently with the help of steroids.
One major league scout, in fact, says the A's never considered a young Giambi as a potential power hitter. He was a skinny second baseman in high school, and even as he began to fill out in the minor leagues, the A's thought of him "as a Sean Casey-type hitter," who would hit over .300 with "moderate power and a high number of doubles," according to the scout.
But that was before Giambi came up to the A's in the mid-'90s and became a protégé of sorts to Mark McGwire, who introduced him to weightlifting and, at the very least, muscle-building supplements. No one knows for sure whether McGwire influenced Giambi in regard to illegal steroids, and the people who covered the A's then say Giambi didn't make himself noticeably bigger until 1999, more than a year after McGwire was traded to the Cardinals.
McGwire, of course, admitted to using Androstenedione, then a legal supplement, during his record-breaking home run season in 1998. In any case, Giambi clearly idolized McGwire, and those around the team then say McGwire partied hard himself after a painful divorce, which also influenced Giambi.
Still, Giambi's lifestyle never became an issue until he signed with the Yankees and stopped putting up MVP-type numbers. People who know him say that despite his apparent swagger as the A's slugger, he wasn't equipped mentally to deal with being a star in New York.
"Basically he's a California kid," says one person close to Giambi. "He wasn't prepared for that East Coast aggressiveness, or the politics that go with being a Yankee. He knew from the start that he didn't fit in there, and more than once he has told his old teammates that he made a big mistake.
"That's one of the reasons Eric Chavez, who loved Jason, signed a long-term deal to stay with the A's," says the friend. "He could have gone for more money, but he saw how happy Jason had been in Oakland, then how unhappy he was in New York. Whatever his physical problems, I don't think there's any question that Jason is breaking down emotionally. He knew the ballclub didn't think he was tough enough after he took himself out of that World Series Game (Game 5 against the Marlins), and I think that contributed to everything that happened last season."
All of which led us here to Las Vegas, looking for Giambi, and/or clues as to where he goes from here, now a confessed steroid user and a Yankee outcast.
He lives in Henderson, a suburb only a few miles south of the Strip, in a housing community that is part of Anthem Country Club. A security guard at the gatehouse called his house on Friday afternoon to tell him the Daily News requested a visit, and returned to say that "you aren't authorized to enter the grounds."
There were no Giambi sightings during two days here, either, but based on information from people who know him, it was possible to sketch out something of the late-night routine he seems to follow.
Though the manager at Gold's Gym in Henderson, the place where Giambi testified to buying Deca Durabolin in 2001, wouldn't comment on anything regarding Giambi, one of the members working out there Friday told the Daily News that he has seen Giambi work out there, "always at night."
After workouts Giambi, according to one person who knows him, often has a late-night dinner at the Tuscany Grill, a few miles up Eastern Ave. It is a small, quiet place you might call elegant, except for the video poker monitors built into the bar, and you can get chicken cacciatore right up until 1 in the morning.
From there Giambi frequently heads into Vegas, usually to the Hard Rock Café or The Palms, and he is often accompanied by his wife Kristian, his brother Jeremy, a former A's teammate who played in the minors for the Las Vegas 51s last season, and other friends. He was seen at The Palms on Tuesday night by A's traveling secretary Mickey Morabito, who told a friend that Giambi seemed to be in good spirits and gave no indication he knew he was about to get slammed with his own grand jury testimony.
How late Giambi stays out, or how hard he parties, or whether his lifestyle should be blamed in any way for his decline as a player, is all a matter of speculation. All you can say for sure is that late is early in Las Vegas.
By 2 a.m. at The Palms, there was still no sign of Giambi, and, well, it was 5 a.m. in New York. Rain was still jumping, but the search was over. For his sake, you could only hope Giambi was already asleep by then. For a change.
