NEW YORK--Don’t look now, but Jason Giambi is batting .424 for the month of July. The Yankees slugger, who was written off by many at the beginning of the season, is starting to show signs of life. Giambi attributes his recent resurgence to hard work, a healthy diet, and steroids.

“Thank you, steroids. Thank you for bringing me back from the dead,” Giambi said after his team’s weekend series at Fenway Park . “If it wasn’t for steroids I wouldn’t be standing here right now. I’d still be in therapy trying to heal my brittle bones and frayed muscles. But now I’m hitting better than ever. I just thank God these drugs are undetectable. They don’t show up in urine tests at all. I could whip it out right now and piss in a cup and you wouldn’t be able to find a damn thing. Anyone wanna watch? Anyone? Don’t all jump at once now.”

Giambi first tried the steroids four months ago after his trainer, Alex Foster, provided him with a sample. Not only were they highly effective, they were also light years ahead of the current steroid testing program.

“Alex was really excited about this stuff,” Giambi said of the miracle drug. “He said it would bring me back to health in no time and that the league didn’t even know it existed. So he gave me this little vial and I started injecting the stuff into my veins. It took a couple months, but I finally started to notice a difference. My numbers went way up. In fact, I’m only about 80 more home runs away from earning this year’s salary.”

While some may disagree with Giambi’s views on steroids, the numbers don’t lie. His batting average has increased two hundred points and his slugging percentage has doubled since the month of May. He has improved in every offensive category. Clearly the drugs are working.

“Say what you want about this new dope, but it works,” said Yankee manager Joe Torre. “I’ve seen it first hand. Jason has completely turned himself around since last year. Remember how weak he was? Now he’s strong as an ox. There’s no question that if Jason wasn’t juicing right now, he’d be joining Bernie Williams as another formerly great Yankee about to be traded to the Devil Rays for minor league pitching prospects—oh shit, you didn’t hear that from me, OK?”

Unfortunately, the use of performance enhancing drugs is against league policy and against the law. When Bud Selig heard about Giambi’s steroid use, he immediately condemned it.

“Hey, you can’t do that,” said Selig. “We just instituted a tough new steroid policy. Anybody who gets caught gets suspended for at least 60 days. Then again, your steroids aren’t detectable. Damn! Well, as commissioner of major league baseball I hereby order you to stop taking them. Please? Come on, man, cut it out. No? OK, well I’ve done all I can do.”

Baseball’s tough new steroid policy includes urine testing only, making it vulnerable to procedures like gene doping, which can be detected through blood tests alone. According to Giambi’s trainer, gene doping is the wave of the future.

“Look, gene doping is where it’s at,” said Foster. “Someday all players will be using stuff like human growth hormone (hGH) and erythropoietin (EPO) instead of generic, old fashioned steroids. Jason is on the cutting edge here. Why sit on the bench when you can be a home run hitting superstar? Are you worried about your health? Hey, we’re all gonna die someday. What’s the difference if it’s 50 years from now or 10 years from now?”

With Giambi’s success, it was only a matter of time before other players started catching on to the trend. Dozens of Giambi’s peers have reportedly contacted him to inquire about the new mystery drug. Some players, like the Baltimore Orioles Sammy Sosa, are willing to do just about anything to get their hands on it.

Copyright 2005, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.