Leitch: Jason Giambi, Yankee Most True — and the One We Most DeserveIn 2008, a time when every record is steroidally suspect, a time when fans spend as much time analyzing players’ contracts as they do their statistics, who is our superstar? Will Leitch can’t think of anybody better than Giambi.
All in the FamilyBee Shaffer and Austin Bryan, the offspring of Anna Wintour and her boyfriend, Shelby Bryan, held hands at Marquee. Harlem congressman Charles Rangel is likely getting a divorce and may be dating other women. The typewriter that disabled author Christy Brown used to bang out his best-selling autobiography (with his left foot, no less) will be auctioned off tomorrow. New York Yankee Jason Giambi took shots at a club. Sophie Dahl and longtime boyfriend Dan Baker Jr. broke up, and Mick Jagger may be to blame. Lindsay Lohan ex Harry Morton is now dating Friday Night Lights star Minka Kelly. Mark Wahlberg and the real-life “E” acted like Vinnie Chase and the fictional “E.” Ronald and Nancy Reagan were once funneled money by a Hollywood studio through an illegitimate real-estate transaction.
the morning line
Interpretations
• Bill Clinton chimes in on the Bloomberg party switch, and he’s all smiles about it: “I suppose he just couldn’t bear to be in the Republican Party anymore,” and he won’t affect Hillary’s margins. [NYP]
• The grad student who drove journalist David Halberstam to his death in a car crash will be charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter: The accident happened when he made an illegal turn. [amNY]
• Jason Giambi finally admitted to steroid use. He will now meet with MLB steroid czar George Mitchell, thus becoming the only current player to cooperate with the probe. [NYDN]
• The Haywards — a wealthy Native American family, who built the Foxwoods casino — say they’re being “shunned” and “pushed out” of the 800-person Connecticut tribe. Which makes them the Trumps of the Pequot. [NYT]
• And the city credits its “hard-hitting” TV ads (starring Ronaldo the Hole-in-the-Throat Guy) with reducing the local smoking rates to a historic low. Could be that. Or could be the fact that you can’t smoke anywhere. [NY Metro]
gossipmonger
Anderson, CelebutanteFox News compares Anderson Cooper to Paris Hilton, and CNN isn’t happy. (Which we imagine was the point.) Steve Madden will underwrite Fashion Week’s Designers for Darfur even though IMG backed out. Hillary Clinton is trying to infuse her campaign with some stand-up comedy. Jeremy Piven jokes that he’d like to settle down with a girlfriend if he weren’t “gayer than Liberace in 1972.” Parsons fashion chairman Tim Gunn to become chief creative officer of Liz Claiborne (but still do Project Runway). Bill Clinton will not be the next president of Harvard.