© Jayne Kamin-Oncea | 2020 Feb 18
In what has become one if the silliest “controversies” in recent memory, Giants fans seem to be split on Gabe Kapler’s decision to cut a dugout interview with Jon Miller and Shawn Estes short during a spring training game on Friday.
#sfgiants Gabe Kapler seems like a really nice guy. But, you don’t agree to do an in-game interview and dump out in the middle of it. After all, it is just a spring training game, right? pic.twitter.com/BrzhhjIWEv
— Joe Castellano (@thesportsvirus) February 29, 2020
Giants PR said that the awkward moment was due to a misunderstanding, where Kapler was informed the interview would last just a few questions, and the broadcast team was told it would last the entire half inning. As one of the broadcasters conducting the interview, Estes gave his take on the incident to Mark Willard on Tuesday night. Estes doesn’t see what the big deal is.
“That was pretty funny wasn’t it?” Estes began. “Just out of nowhere. For people watching the broadcast we had a pretty good interview going and he probably assumed the inning was going to go as smooth as the first inning did, so Gabe was thinking he could get off the hook with a couple questions and then go to commercial and be done with it.
“But Johnny (Cueto) got a couple baserunners on and he’s like ‘uh oh I’ve got to manage here.’ He cut the interview short, pulled off his headset and he pulled the infield in. Right on cue Cueto gets a ground ball to Belt and they cut the runner off at home, so I guess that needed to happen for it to materialize like it did.
“But it was kind of funny, I think it shocked Jon a little bit, he’s not used to guys doing that to him. You know Boch in spring training, he cares about winning games but he understands spring training is a little different right? So he’ll finish the interview and then see what happens, or at least let his bench coach pull the infield in for him.”
Estes actually thought Kapler’s move was a good example of where his priorities lie.
“It was actually pretty entertaining if you ask me. I think Jon was like ‘What do you mean, he can’t just leave the interview?’ But he can, he can do whatever he wants, he the manager of the Giants, he’s out there trying to win games. I thought it was pretty cool because Gabe was like ‘I don’t care what’s going on. It’s spring training and I’m trying to manage every game right now like we need to win.’ I thought it was pretty good TV to be honest.
“I don’t fault him at all for going out and managing like it’s a regular season game, because the players see that and they respect that. They see that it’s not just all PR right now. He’s not just trying to create an image…I think there’s a lot of eyes on him right now and a lot of those eyes are on his bench, and those are the ones that really matter to him, not us. I respect the fact that he did that to be honest.”
Listen to the interview below.