Teammates Also Have Olympics, Big League Hopes in Common : Baseball: Jason Giambi and Chris Gomez took very different paths to Cal State Long Beach. But now they’re both top pro prospects as well as likely starting infielders in Barcelona.

Although they took different paths to Cal State Long Beach, juniors Jason Giambi and Chris Gomez appear to be on the same road.

Giambi, a third baseman, and Gomez, a shortstop, have been projected as first round draft picks by Baseball America in the June amateur draft, where underclassmen are often selected by Major League teams.

Both have played for the United States in international competition, and they are expected to comprise the starting left side of the infield for Team USA at the Barcelona Olympics this summer.

It took a couple of years, however, for two of the most talented underclassmen in the nation to hook up in the same collegiate infield for the Big West Conference baseball champion 49ers.

Giambi, a junior who throws right-handed and bats left-handed, showed up at Coach Dave Snow’s door in the summer of 1989 looking for a tryout. He was All-Valle Vista League in baseball, basketball and football at South Hills High School in West Covina and All-Southern Section CIF in basketball and baseball. He made the dean’s list and was chosen by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 42nd round of the amateur baseball draft.

Giambi chose to attend college, but scholarships were nowhere to be found.

“In high school I was tall and just starting to grow into my body,” the 6-foot-2 Giambi said. “I grew so fast I looked awkward for awhile.”

Giambi figured he would end up at a community college. Then an acquaintance introduced him to Snow, who thought Giambi was worth a gamble.

“He had good size,” Snow said. “I thought he had some potential to be a good player. He had a lot of the things I like to see in a player.”

Snow, who will be an Olympic assistant in Barcelona, added Giambi to the 49ers’ summer baseball team so he could look him over. That was the foot in the door that Giambi was looking for.

Explained Snow: “It didn’t take me long to see that the potential was there.”

Snow’s decision has been paying dividends ever since. In 1990, Giambi batted .422 and was named Big West Freshman of the Year. Last season he was a first team All-Big West selection on a team that finished fifth at the College World Series. He drove in 83 runs, had a slugging percentage of .563 and team highs of 57 walks and a .526 on-base average. He went on to start for Team USA and hit .340 and score 23 runs in 30 games, including 10 at the Pan Am games in Havana, Cuba.

“He’s a tough out,” Snow said. “He doesn’t have a true hole to pitch to. He hits left-handed pitching and has the ability to use the whole field.”

This season Giambi is batting more than 40 points below his Big West-leading .407 average of 1991. But his .603 slugging percentage is more than 40 points higher than last year, prompting Olympic Coach Ron Fraser of the University of Miami to say: “Jason is just a pure hitter. You got to look at him as the guy that can play third base and (designated hitter). You bring in a guy like that because of his hitting.”

The only knock on Giambi: He has made 16 errors this season.

“He hasn’t had the defensive year at third base that we anticipated,” Snow said.

When he came out of Lakewood High in 1989, Gomez, a 6-foot-1 junior, was more heralded than was Giambi. He earned All-Southern Section CIF first-team honors and was taken by the California Angels in the 37th round of the amateur draft, but he chose to accept a scholarship to play at Loyola Marymount. As a freshman he was named All-West Coast Conference Newcomer of the Year, batting .373 with 62 RBIs and a team-high 24 doubles. At one point he had a 19-game hitting streak.

Gomez earned the starting shortstop job for Team USA prior to the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle, where the U.S. team finished third. Later that summer Gomez went 18 for 36 at the plate during the World Championships in Edmonton.

In 1991 at Loyola, Gomez’s hitting dropped 89 points, but he continued to be among the nation’s best fielders. In early May, he broke his right arm when he was hit by a pitch. But he was still awarded first team All-WCC honors.

“On a ballclub you have to have a middle infielder who is very, very steady,” Fraser said. “You’re not worried about him hitting .300; you want him to make the play again and again, and Chris can do that.”

In mid-June, with his broken right arm just out of the cast, Gomez was packing his bags to head for the Pan Am Games training camp when his college career took a swift turn. Loyola coach Chris Smith, considered one of the up and coming young collegiate coaches in the nation, suddenly announced his resignation.

A week after Smith’s announcement, a distraught Gomez transferred to Long Beach. He said he did not want to wait around to see whom Loyola would hire.

“Basically, I had only one choice,” Gomez said. “Both programs were alike. Smitty was an aggressive coach and so is Snow.”

Giambi and Gomez knew of each other, but they did not meet until last August in Memphis on a bus that was taking Team USA to the airport for its trip to Cuba. By that time, Gomez’s arm had healed sufficiently for him to catch up with the team, which had played a series of games during the summer without him. Giambi, who had been away from Long Beach since May, said he had only recently heard that Gomez intended to play there.

“I was kind of shocked to hear it,” Giambi said. “But we seem to work well over there together. Chris makes my job a lot easier. He’s one of the best shortstops in the country.”

Gomez has made just five errors in 223 chances this season. He is batting .276, striking out only 18 times.

The transition from Loyola to Long Beach was easy, Gomez said, because being accepted by the affable Giambi helped him adjust more quickly.

Explained Giambi: “We hit it off as friends right off.”

The pair did not room together in Cuba, but they spent a great deal of time together while they were at the Pan Am Games. They say they experienced things that helped them get to know each other better.

“It’s a different time zone far away,” Giambi said. “There was no air conditioning and the food--they don’t have McDonald’s there.”

For nearly two weeks they survived on a diet of meat, potatoes and rice. “You didn’t want to touch the fruit because of the water they washed it in,” Gomez said.

But the experience was worth it, they say.

“Cubans don’t like the U.S., but they like the American people,” Giambi said. “They want to talk to you. Castro has beaten it into their heads that we are these anti-communist, anti-Cuba people. They want to know about all of us.”

Playing internationally probably has furthered their worth to pro teams.

“To a college guy, playing international baseball is a bit of a shock,” said Fraser of Team USA. “They’re pretty good athletes at 20 or 21 years old, and they know they are going to get drafted. Then they play against teams like Cuba with guys who are 26 or 27 who have been together years. It’s like playing against a Big League ballclub. These are guys who can hit the ball out of sight. They’re throwing 93 miles an hour in the first inning and 93 in the ninth.”

Giambi and Gomez would not change a thing, they said, even though long hours and playing baseball year-round sometimes leaves them dead tired.

They’re on the right road, they agreed.