A California coroner reportedly said former major league baseball star Jeremy Giambi died from a gunshot wound to the heart.
The New York Post reported the Los Angeles county medical examiner released the findings after investigating Giambi’s self-inflicted death nearly six months ago. The coroner’s report indicated the former baseball player left a suicide note and committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest. The gun Giambi reportedly used to shoot himself was a Winchester Model 94AE lever action repeating rifle.
Giambi’s mother was babysitting the MLB player’s children February 9 at her Claremont, California, home and was the person who discovered his body, according to the coroner’s office. He was aged 47 at the time of his death.
Giambi played for the Royals, Athletics, Phillies and Red Sox between 1998 and 2003, posting a career .263 batting average. According to Wikipedia, he was a teammate of his older brother, Jason, when the Oakland A’s recorded division championship-winning seasons in 2000 and 2001. The outfielder and first baseman saw less playing time in the years after his brother signed with the Yankees as a free agent in 2002.
The coroner’s report reportedly added that since the 1990s Giambi had a history of drug use. The coroner reported specified methamphetamine and Percocet, adding his addiction was treated when Giambi entered rehab in 2014. The Kansas City Star reported on March 13, 2005, that Giambi admitted using anabolic steroids.
He was not believed to have been using drugs recently, the Post added.
Giambi suffered a broken zygomatic bone after being hit in the head by a baseball last year while serving as a pitching coach. The former first baseman “had not been the same since and was very negative, emotional and paranoid since the head injury,” the coroner’s report said, according to the Post.
Baseball fans will always remember him for being the unlucky person on the receiving end of Derek Jeter’s “flip play.” The New York Yankees catcher caught the ball flipped by Jeter in time to tag Giambi out as he crossed home plate in the 2001 American League Divisional Series.
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