ALL afternoon, as the Yankees kept slipping on banana peels, Jason Giambi quietly waited for a look from his manager, a glance, an opportunity to put on a batting helmet, try to stanch the bleeding.
All afternoon, as the Blue Jays built a 7-2 lead, then an 8-6 lead, as all the woes and the worries that suck the Yankees in like quicksand – sweaty bullpen, empty clutch hitting, the suddenly ultra-vulnerable Chien-Ming Wang – Joe Girardi patiently waited for an opening to tap his wounded first baseman, point him toward the batter’s box.
Finally, bottom of the ninth, running out of ballgame, running out of hope, Girardi walked over to Giambi.
“What do you think?” Girardi asked.
“Gimme a shot,” Giambi replied.
It seemed a fruitless task. Derek Jeter grounded out. Bobby Abreu flied out. B.J. Ryan’s slider was tilting and his fastball was snapping, there were two outs, none on, Jays up two, maybe half the 53,571 who paid their way in were still in the house. The Yankees were limping toward another bad loss in a season overrun with them.
“Not a happy day at the office,” Girardi conceded.
Alex Rodriguez hit a sharp ground ball to the left. Scott Rolen, the Jays’ peerless third baseman, tried to intercept the ball, sparing his glass-armed shortstop, David Eckstein, a no-chance peg to first. The ball trickled through. Alex Rodriguez stole second: defensive indifference. Hideki Matsui hit a soft line drive into center. A-Rod scored, 8-7 now. The crowd began to stir.
And here came Giambi.
It’s been a year that’s eerily mirrored Giambi’s tenure as a Yankee. There were times early when you wondered if he would ever make contact with a pitched ball again. But lately, the average was up to .250, from a low of .150. He even collected an opposite field hit the other day, channeling Derek Jeter, defying the overshift he sees every day.
“Things had been going better,” he said, “and then the foot thing happened.”
He was hit by a pitch Tuesday, the left foot, his plant foot. He sat Wednesday. He sat yesterday.
“It was frustrating,” Giambi said. “We’ve waited so long to get everyone together, and Jorge [Posada] comes back today and then I can’t go.”
Ryan threw a slider. Giambi swung through it. Ryan threw another slider, a better slider, and Giambi nearly fell down fouling it off. Oh-and-two. The Yankees were 1-26 on the season in games they trailed after seven. Giambi was 2-for-14 lifetime against Ryan. Ugly numbers all the way around, fixing to get uglier.
“I figured he’d put me away with a fastball,” Giambi said.
Ryan figured that’s what Giambi was figuring.
“But I had a good slider today,” Ryan said. “Real good.”
This one wasn’t near as good. This one hung like a helicopter, broke in around the heart of the plate. Giambi, still thinking fastball, already had the bat head out. When he made contact, he felt the same unmatched rush he had felt 374 times previous in his career – a home run feels different than just about any other sensation in the world.
There was only one thing left to wonder.
“I started talking it fair,” Giambi said, “as soon as it got in the air.”
So did everyone else. Girardi leapt to the dugout stairs, started studying the ball flight. He was joined by his players, some of them studying Ed Rapuano, the first-base umpire. Girardi focused on Giambi. “The player will tell you,” he said.
“Halfway out, it stopped hooking, started straightening,” Giambi said. “And I knew.”
Rapuano confirmed it, emphatically, and the ball landed 10 rows deep in the upper deck, and instantly there was Sinatra blaring, and an “8” placed on the scoreboard, followed quickly by a “9.” The remnants of the crowd roared. Giambi’s foot pain vanished for the 20 seconds it took to tour the basepaths and jump on home plate.
“They got magic in this place,” Toronto manager John Gibbons would say.
The mysticism has mostly been missing so far, and maybe this is a blip rather than a benchmark. Only the next few weeks can tell. For now, the Yankees were going to enjoy themselves, enjoy their wins. And, yes, for now, while it was there in the house for everyone to see, they would enjoy the magic, too.