LIFE OF THE PARTY

He is a last link to the Oakland A’s of Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Rickey Henderson, Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley, but Jason Giambi is more than that, more than McGwire’s hand-picked, power-hitting disciple.

He is the brash, young and, to an extent, swaggering leader of the brash, young and, to an extent, swaggering A’s--”in some ways he represents every man on the team in different levels,” General Manager Billy Beane says--but he is more than that.

Giambi is the punch and panache, the self-proclaimed “king of the one-liners,” the long haired, tattooed, fun-loving, partying first baseman whose locker features pictures of his pro wrestling friends and favorites--after all, he was once one of Hulk Hogan’s “little Hulksters,” as he puts it.

Giambi played like a hulk against the San Diego Padres Wednesday, driving in seven runs with a grand slam (his third of the year) and a two-run homer, and tonight leads the AmericanLeague West-leading A’s, including brother Jeremy--yes, the A’s have created a literal reprisal of the Bash Brothers--into Dodger Stadium for the opener of a three-game interleague series, after which there is sure to be a party at the family home in West Covina, sure to be a party somewhere.

“I’ve known Jason since he first came up and he’s always taken his career and leadership roles very seriously,” Beane said. “He’s a leader first because he produces on the field and because he works hard at it, and I don’t think anything he does off the field has ever affected that. I think a lot of what he says and does is tongue in cheek. I’m not sure he’s the wild child that gets written about and that he likes to project.”

Of course. Just because he has a custom motorcycle (he refused to sign his current contract if the A’s included a ban on riding it) and a purple Lamborghini doesn’t make him a wild child. Nor does the fact that he tends to push the outlaw image and has that major league record tattoo on his upper left arm, the tattoo--”it’s spiritual,” he says--that his mother wanted to take an ink eradicator to when she saw that menacing face of a skull with a sun around it and a tribal band around his biceps.

Sure, it was definitely tongue in cheek when he posed recently for Bob Guccione’s Gear magazine wearing his uniform and lounging in Roman style as a bevy of beauties fed him grapes and he was quoted in the accompanying article as saying he was on a bobsled to hell with O.J. Simpson as his brakeman. Just a little fun, Giambi says, but then there’s Bob Alejo, the A’s strength coach and one of Giambi’s running mates, who notes that if there’s a party, “we’re going to know where it is, which doesn’t mean we’ll be there, but we’ll know the time and place.”

Look, says Giambi, in the rare quiet of the clubhouse long before a recent game, “playing ball is all I ever wanted to do and I’m having fun with it. I like to laugh and I like people around me to laugh. I know where the line is and I know my limitations, but it’s a failure-oriented business and you can’t live and die with it or it’ll eat you up. I’ve had people say to me, ‘Dude, if you didn’t run as hard you might be better.’ Well, I might be worse, too. I guess it comes down to the fact that as much as I wanted to be a rock star, I couldn’t sing. I’m just living the lifestyle instead.”

Having fun, he said, on a team that runs the gamut “from guys making the minimum to guys making millions, and everyone remembering what it was like in Little League, why we’re playing the game.” Having fun, he said, with an image that runs the gamut and of which “I like a little bit of all of it, but if you ask my sister, who was just up here to visit us, or a lot of my friends, they’d probably say I’m just a big teddy bear.”

A teddy bear who has been active nationally working with youngsters who have bed-wetting problems, who at 29 still calls his parents every day, who couldn’t be happier to have his brother and best friend--an outfielder whom the A’s acquired in a spring deal with the Kansas City Royals--on the same team, and who transforms into a grizzly in the batter’s box--or, as Manager Art Howe puts it, borrowing another metaphor from the animal kingdom, “He’s our horse. He’s the guy we ride.”

Giambi faces the Dodgers with a .299 batting average and is third in the AL with 19 homers and second with 59 runs batted in while leading AL first baseman in All-Star voting.

He was eighth in most-valuable-player voting last year, when he had career bests in average (.315), homers (33), RBIs (123), hits (181) and walks (105), the first player in Oakland history to lead the team in batting average for three consecutive seasons. His .315 average was also the highest by a left-handed A’s hitter since Ferris Fain batted .327 in 1952. Statistics document that he has been the American League’s most consistent power hitter since the ’99 All-Star break.

“I don’t think I’ve had a career year yet,” the 6-foot-3, 235-pound Giambi said. “One of the most important things I’ve learned from [McGwire] is that you can constantly improve, constantly get better, and that’s what I hope to do. Mark has convinced me that the first time you think you’ve got the game figured out is when it comes back to bite you. Now it’s a fear-of-failure kind of thing that drives me. I never want to have a down year.”

Said Howe: “What makes Jason special is that he’s not just a power hitter. He hits the ball where it’s pitched, and with authority. I came up with the [Pittsburgh] Pirates when Willie Stargell was the go-to guy, and Jason fits that mold. He wants to be up there with the game on the line, which is a great quality. A lot of guys don’t want that part of it. He’s also like having an extra coach on the field. He doesn’t shy away from taking a vocal role, which is another area a lot of guys don’t like.”

Giambi played football, baseball and basketball at West Covina’s South Hills High, scorned the Milwaukee Brewers as a 43rd-round selection to attend Cal State Long Beach (where he had to do some talking to convince coach Dave Snow that he should hit rather than pitch), was a freshman All-American, played on the 1992 Olympic team (developing a lasting relationship with Michael Jordan, who has been helpful to Giambi in the handling of his growing fame) and was a second-round draft choice of the A’s that summer.

Giambi debuted with Oakland in 1995 and was immediately adopted, so to speak, by McGwire, with whom he still talks several times a week.

“I attribute a lot of my success to him,” Giambi said. “He’s the one who got me going. He put me in the weight room, and my power numbers started to soar. He accelerated my learning process. I tell people that here’s a guy who hit 49 homers as a rookie, batted .201 one year and now has hit 70, so he’s been on all sides of the spectrum, and I was lucky enough that he opened to me and still does. I mean, his mental approach is second to none, and he doesn’t receive enough credit for it. Everybody sees this big man hit 60 to 70 home runs a year, but to do that requires so much focus that it’s beyond most people’s understanding. To hit a home run every six or seven at-bats is ungodly.”

It was Giambi who accepted the award for McGwire, now with the St. Louis Cardinals, when he was recently honored as a member of the A’s all-century team, and it was Giambi whom McGwire cited as the A’s new leader when he was traded in 1997, which enabled Giambi, an outfielder and designated hitter until then, to play first regularly.

If Giambi expected to hear some muttering and opposition, it didn’t happened.

Relief pitcher Doug Jones credits Giambi with the sense of timing and charismatic ability to energize people. And outfielder Ryan Christenson says, “He’s like a kid. He keeps it super-duper light. He can dish it out and take it.”

The Giambi boys have been dishing it out and taking it since their father, John, a bank president, first put terry cloth bats and balls in their cribs. Jeremy, three years younger, followed Jason everywhere--off the roof into the swimming pool, through the Covina sewer system, going places and doing things their mother, Jeanne, now says, “I was glad I didn’t know about until later in life or they would have been grounded.”

The boys shared a bedroom, where Jason returned as recently as last year after a divorce that affected his first-half performance, and a lasting attachment.

Now they share an off-season house in Las Vegas, an apartment in the East Bay and an A’s uniform, having become the 14th set of big league brothers to homer in the same game, when they did it against the Angels on May 8.

“We had our share of fisticuffs and gave each other black eyes, but having the opportunity to play together is a dream come true,” Jason said. “I think the one reason we both made it is that we had the drive and passion to put our minds to things, whether it was jumping off the roof or getting the job done on the baseball field.

“We always got after it, no matter what it was, and I always point out what the Alomars [Cleveland’s Roberto and Sandy] say, which is how awesome it is to have your brother, and best friend, as a teammate.”

In the current environment, however, with the attendance-strapped A’s sitting on a $32-million payroll and hoping to hold the economic line, it is uncertain how long the Giambis will remain teammates.

Jason took less than market value to sign a three-year, $10-million deal in 1998. It expires after the 2001 season. He would like to remain part of the Oakland building program and is hopeful the A’s will be able to shed their small-market restraints.

“There are a lot of monopoly numbers out there,” he said of the soaring salaries. “I’m not looking to be the highest-paid player, but this time around we’re going to go with what’s fair. I’m hopeful the A’s will step up. I was here when this building process started, and I’d like to see it through to a championship finish.”

And in the meantime, party on.

*

TONIGHT

OAKLAND

at DODGERS

7

TV: Channel 5

Radio: KXTA (1150)