And now for something a little different for our Bad Spring Training Decision of the Day. As fun as mocking prospective lineup choices might be, what Giants manager Bruce Bochy did on Wednesday is truly unique and thus well deserving of the BSTDOTD honors.
Angel scout Jeff Schugel was in the Giants facility yesterday morning, scouting, as scouts are want to do and Bochy, for whatever reason, decided he could not let this unseemly act of a man doing his job slide. Here is how the incident allegedly went down:
Bochy saw him in the empty stadium and told a media relations person he wanted the scout gone. A security guard then asked Schugel to leave. Funny thing is, if this happened yesterday, or any other day the Giants are not playing a home game, Schugel could have stayed and scouted to his heart’s desire. Workouts on non-game days are open to everyone.
Schugel didn’t take too kindly to being ejected from the facility and reportedly made a flustered phone call to Angels HQ telling them to immediately return the favor and ban Giant scouts from the Angels spring training facilities.
Boom! Instant kerfuffle.
Fortunately, a kerfuffle is as high as this escalated. One would hate to have seen this grow into a full blown donnybrook or even, dare I say it, a rhubarb. The GMs for both teams both moved quickly to issue statements about this branigan being nothing more than one big misunderstanding. Nobody is necessarily saying who was right or who was wrong, but it is pretty clear that this whole thing could have been avoided if Bruce Bochy didn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed and decide that one lone scout watching his guys work some fielding drills was somehow interfering with his ability to run his team. Even if Schugel was there on the wrong day or just entered the facility a little early, one has to believe that this could have been handled more diplomatically than having the security guard give the long-time scout the old heave-ho.
Cheer up, Bruce, or next time it could result in an actual ruckus.
