OPINION

By Jim Litke

updated 1:37 a.m. ET Aug. 17, 2007

Jim Litke

We could have done without commissioner Bud Selig’s self-serving plug on behalf of Jason Giambi and his charitable work.

Considering that George Steinbrenner is paying the Yankee slugger $23 million this season for what amounts to a part-time job — injuries have limited Giambi to less than half of New York’s games — giving something back is not just the right thing do, it’s practically an obligation.

That said, Selig made the right call Thursday letting Giambi off with time served and the sting of public scorn for what was, after all, a nearly four-year-old admission that he used performance-enhancing drugs. Giambi owned up to that during a federal grand jury appearance in the BALCO investigation in the winter of 2003, then apologized publicly — sort of, anyway — at the start of spring training a little over a year later.

We don’t know how much more he said to Selig’s hand-picked steroids investigator, former Sen. George Mitchell, during their recent meeting. But with the commissioner’s threat of further discipline hanging over Giambi’s head, his cooperation apparently was enough — once Selig factored in the big lug’s charitable instincts.

“He’s doing a lot of public-service work, and I think that’s terribly important,” Selig said from an owners’ meeting in Toronto. “I think it’s more important for us to keep getting the message out. He was, I thought, very frank and candid with Sen. Mitchell, at least that was the senator’s conclusion. Given everything, this is an appropriate decision.”

Whether it’s a smart one as well won’t be known unless or until more of Giambi’s fellow users agree to come forward and share what they know about the game’s supersized era. The message has been getting out for nearly a half-dozen years now, and the best guess on the number of juicers might still be the 50 percent figure Jose Canseco parlayed into a best-seller.

Punishment isn’t the goal of Mitchell’s open-ended investigation, nor should it be. Otherwise, Mitchell would be going after the cheaters who were already caught, like Rafael Palmeiro, or Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who raised more questions than answers during an appearance before a senate committee.

Besides, the feds are still sifting through the evidence collected after busting former Diamondback pitcher Jason Grimsley and Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski. For the moment, let’s leave the question of determining appropriate penalties to them.

The rest of us are already resigned to the fact that the last 15 years of baseball have been juiced. What we want to know, more than how many ballplayers should be punished, is how many were juiced.

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