It says something about a man when he’s willing to apologize, as Jason Giambi did yesterday. It says even more when he apologizes to people whom he hasn’t wronged, and doesn’t apologize to those whom he has.

The surreal nature of yesterday’s press conference at Yankee Stadium, during which Giambi apologized to the press, the fans, the Yankees organization and his teammates without specifying what exactly he did wrong, seems to have obscured the curious fact that the people most wronged by Giambi’s use of performance-enhancing drugs went unmentioned in his prepared statement.

Whether Giambi is actually contrite is simply none of my business, but I see no reason to doubt that he feels shame and regret for the choices he’s made.

“I accept full responsibility … I’m just trying to go forward now,” he said, and he should be taken at his word. He is far from the only ballplayer to have taken advantage of the blind eye the press, fans, teams, and players turned to the use of illegal drugs, and he doesn’t deserve to lose his dignity for being the only active player to have admitted to use. Giambi made a mistake, but he at least has the honor to admit it and go on.

Still, his apology rang a false note – not from a lack of sincerity, but from a lack of thoughtfulness about what is wrong with performance-enhancers.

It’s hard to tell exactly how Giambi let down the press. I’m a member of the press; I’m not offended or disappointed or surprised by his drug use. He didn’t harm me in any way.

If anyone has harmed the press, it’s been the press, which offered nothing more than innuendo as ballplayers swelled grotesquely in the 1990s. Our job is to cover baseball; the job of a ballplayer is to play it. Players owe writers nothing but the common decency and respect any person owes another. If Jason Giambi can avoid disappointment when I put whiskey in my body, I can avoid disappointment when he puts testosterone in his.

It’s similarly hard to tell exactly how Giambi let down the fans. They were more than happy to cheer for him when he looked like a pro wrestler, and only the youngest or most willfully naive fans could have illusions about what made him look like that. Players owe fans nothing but their best effort, not an accounting of what goes into their bodies.

It’s still harder to tell how Giambi let down the Yankee organization. It strains credibility past the breaking point to imagine that they didn’t know what he was doing when they signed him. They were happy to reap the benefits of his drug use; he owes them no apology now that the consequences of that have embarrassed them.

It is a good thing that Giambi apologized to his teammates. While it’s quite likely that some, and perhaps many of them are familiar with the needle and the pill, he nonetheless wronged them. The competition in baseball is not only between teams, but also within them. When Giambi used drugs to help himself secure a starting role and a prime spot in the lineup, he may well have put others in a situation where they had to choose between using drugs and competing with him while at a disadvantage.

Nor does this just extend to his pinstriped teammates. Assuming – and it is reasonable to do so – that he was not first introduced to performance-enhancers in 2001, it’s clear that Giambi also wronged the players in the Oakland A’s system with whom he was competing as he came up through the minors (just as, no doubt, many of them wronged him). And most of all, he wronged players on other teams, against whom he competed with an illegal edge (though again,many of them wronged him as well).

There were no words in Giambi’s statement, though, for long-forgotten minor league washouts who couldn’t compete with both his talent and his willingness to break the law for his own advantage. Actions have consequences. A home run Giambi was only able to hit because he was on drugs may have made the difference between the majors and the minors for a fringe pitcher trying to qualify for a pension.The 2000 Indians, who finished a half-game out in a three-way race for two playoff spots with the A’s and Mariners, may well have been kept out of October by testosterone cream.

Not acknowledging this isn’t a fault unique to Giambi, and it isn’t really fair to blame him for it. Judging from his statement, he thinks about performance-enhancers much the same way most people do – that using them is wrong because ballplayers owe everyone not only their athletic performance, but also a reprieve from the real world,w here people cheat each other in ways infinitely worse than any ballplayer has ever been accused of doing.

That’s not true.The accounts Giambi has to settle are with his own conscience and his fellow athletes – not with you, not with me, and not with George Steinbrenner. These are not matters for press conferences, and it’s unfortunate that the Yankees would trot the man out in a deeply silly attempt to pre-empt what will be a richly deserved storm of bad publicity for their organization.

In speaking yesterday, Giambi has already done more than he needs to do. It speaks well of him. Apologies are at best more than the rest of us really need, and at worst more than we deserve.