This past winter, Jason Giambi wasn’t thinking about playing baseball.
The 42-year-old was interviewing to be the Colorado Rockies’ manager. After Walt Weiss got the job, Giambi passed up an offer to be the team’s hitting coach and decided to keep playing baseball.
Cleveland should be happy about that.
Wednesday night, Giambi turned a dejected, then vitriolic Progressive Field into a 1997-style party, jacking a two-out, pinch-hit walk-off homer after polarizing closer Chris Perez blew a save in the top of the ninth inning.
Giambi may be hitting just .181 in 182 at-bats in 2013 but his finest moments have come in the most magnified.
Go back to July 29 against the White Sox: Giambi becomes the oldest player in major league history to hit a walk-off home run.
With his blast Wednesday, Giambi just added a few months to his own record.
“You could fill up a book, because I keep trying to say how I feel about him, and I just don't feel like I ever quite get there. That's how valuable I feel like he is to our team," manager Terry Francona said after the July walk-off.
Francona, who should be the AL Manager of the Year in his first season in Cleveland, tried again to articulate Giambi’s importance now in the crucial final push of September.
"He's always ready, and that's why he's playing this game -- because he wants to win," Francona said after the latest win over the White Sox. "He is willing to do anything for anybody at any time. He's been a blessing for all of us."
Game 157 very well could have been remembered for Perez’s implosion but Giambi had other ideas.
He was ready and seized the moment, anger turning to ecstasy in a matter of minutes as the crowd at Progressive Field did a complete 180.
No matter what happens in the final week of this season, Giambi’s homer will live on in Tribe lore - the night the grizzled veteran bailed out the scorned closer.
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