Giambi Back in New York -- Scruffy, Happy and With No Regrets

NEW YORK -- The beard speaks volumes.

It's speckled with gray now, but the fact that Jason Giambi can go as long as he wants without shaving lets us all know how comfortable he is back in Oakland and away from the Yankees.

"I think it's good for him to be back," Athletics teammate Jack Cust said Monday, which was to be Giambi's return to the Bronx before rain interfered. "There's a lot less pressure. There's a lot less media. You go oh-fer a couple of games in New York, it's a bigger deal. It you're in Oakland, you can not answer any questions if you're having a tough week."

Giambi had a lot of tough weeks in New York, and had to answer a lot of questions -- more than anything, about his testimony in the BALCO case and eventual admission of steroid use.

Had Giambi stayed with the A's, where his carefree personality was a better fit, who knows how things would have turned out? But he's never been one for regrets.

"I had a great time," he said. "I had fun here. I had fun coming every day and playing in front of a packed house.

"But it's also fun to be back."

Giambi is 38 now, and he seems to know what he had, and what he had missed, with the A's. When Oakland played Seattle recently, he was able to compare notes with another Ken Griffey Jr., who also made a homecoming this season.

"It's fun to be back full circle," Giambi said.

Giambi said Oakland general manager Billy Beane likes to kid that "the legend's back."

Much of Giambi's Yankees career was consumed with his health (intestinal parasite, pituitary gland tumor and eventually foot and leg problems) and performance-enhancing drugs. The biggest disappointment for Giambi was that in seven seasons he never won a World Series.

"The expectation level, you learn how to deal with that," he said. "There is no real place on the planet like this.

"I gave my heart and soul when I played here. I had some good times and bad times. But for the most part, I look at it as I had incredible times. I grew a lot as a person – as a player as well. ... I think that's what's supposed to happen. You're supposed to learn from that, and move on."

The heart and soul, though, probably belong more in California.

"He's been able to concentrate on the baseball," Cust said, "and hopefully do the same things he did (in New York) and the same things he's done his whole career, which is get on base, drive in runs."