The Man-Cave: Second Best Sports Siblings: Jeremy Giambi

Professional sports are filled with some great sibling athletes who have left a mark on their individual sports. You have Super Bowl MVP quarterbacks Eli and Peyton Manning, Serena and Venus Williams in tennis, NHL's Henrik and Daniel Sedin plus Eric and Jordan Staal, and MLB's Roberto and Sandy Alomar as well as Moises and Felipe Alou. Their accomplishments and notoriety are well documented with a billion sports stories you can find everywhere on the web.

Then there are those siblings who have black eyes on their sport and are clearly the child who are least talked about at family get togethers around the holidays. Today we explore these little talked about pro sports never-were's and give the poor peeps some shine that I'm sure Dad hasn't given them since they graduated high school.

TODAY'S INDUCTION: JEREMY GIAMBI

Jason Giambi will always be known as one of the game's best power hitters. Steroid-induced power but nonetheless a power hitter with large bulging forearms. He will also be remembered as the man who sold out his Oakland Athletics squad and the St. Louis Cardinals for Yankees pinstripes before being implicated for using illegal PED's. The only reason he was given a pass by sports fans and writers alike was because he was the first player who did the right thing by admitting his mistake and coming clean publicly about it, while Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro denied it until they were proven guilty. And well Barry Bonds still denies it, but that's a story for another post. Funny thing is that Giambi digressed rather quickly afterwards when injuries began piling up and went back to the A's on his hands and knees begging them to take his tainted butt back in 2009...and then they released him a few months later. Now he's one of the most overrated pinch hitters in the game.

Speaking of pinch hitters, that is a great segue way to his brother Jeremy. Sports writers loved to take shots at him so much that you'd think he was the subject of Pearl Jam's hit song. "Clearly I remember...picking on the boy...seemed a harmless little f***". Yes, this "Jeremy" was harmless, unless he was on your roster.

Jeremy started in the A's outfield while brother Jason handled 1B duties, and seemingly only made the team due to nepotism. He was a terrible fielder who was figured into the (sham) Moneyball system, since his minute salary and walks taken made up for his fielding errors or something...whatever Billy Beane was smoking. And that was supposed to replace MVP Jason's production when he left for New York in 2002. Umm, ok.

He is probably best known for costing the A's the 2001 ALDS in what has become hailed as the infamous "Jeter Flip Play". Jeremy attempted to score on a ball hit to right field that he would have scored on if the knucklehead would've slid instead of standing up, allowing Jorge Posada to tag him out. It was the turning point in the series that shifted the momentum in favor of the Yankees, who came back from a 2-0 game deficit to win the ALDS.

After getting busted for pot at an airport and being roid-head like his bro, Beane conned Phillies jelly-brained GM Ed Wade into trading him to Philadelphia for veteran utitlityman John Mabry, who did well for Oakland while Giambi stunk up the joint both on the field and locker room in Philadelphia. When the season ended, he was traded to the Red Sox for a bucket of balls (sincere thanks for that one, Theo Epstein) where he spent the last season of his illustrious career.

Post-PEDs, Jason did have a comeback season in 2005 where he hit 32 HRs, which is more than Jeremy ever hit in his entire career. Maybe Jason took the real stuff and Jeremy shot up the placebo? Either way, drugged up Jason won a league MVP as well as multiple Silver Slugger awards and All-Star Appearances while Jeremy was being traded from team to team so he could be another club's problem. Too bad they don't have an official award for that honor or Jeremy would be a lock for Cooperstown.

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