© Stan Szeto | 2019 Sep 28
Bruce Bochy has a reputation for being a pretty chill guy. An intense competitor no doubt, but Bochy is not known for flying off the handle, or using aggressive tactics as a means to motivate his team.
That doesn’t mean he’s never snapped, however. One such time was detailed by former Giant, and current Phillies announcer Kevin Frandsen, who recounted an incident that took place between 2007-2009 (when Frandsen and Bochy’s Giants tenure’s overlapped) when Bochy briefly lost his temper in the clubhouse.
“My locker was right there, right when you walked into the clubhouse, straight on,” Frandsen began. “Bochy walks in…he’s not graceful when he walks, he just kind of lumbers in there and he was pissed. And we knew he was pissed. We were playing bad.
“It wasn’t really so much about how we were playing on the field it was how we were prepping. We had Golden Tee (arcade game) going on in the back hall. Guys were back there playing until 7:00 for a 7:15 game. TVs are supposed to be off at 6:30-6:45. We didn’t have a lot of rules but those were the rules. Just do those, but we didn’t do them.
“He came in — I think I had screwed up a couple of games before, but I didn’t screw up in that game, so I’m like ‘man, I’m good, what’s he all pissed about’ — he’s walking towards me. This is not good. He just goes right by me, into my locker and there’s my bat that’s sitting right there, and he looks at it and gives me like a *grunt*, the old grunt that he does.
“He walks over to the TV and he gives it one whack. It doesn’t go. It pisses him off even more, and he obliterates the next screen. He walked back over (to Frandsen’s locker), said maybe one little thing, puts the bat back in the locker and walks right to his office.
“Everyone’s sitting there like, ‘Oh yeah, we got the message! Hey TVs off 6:45 here we go fellas!’ I mean it was frightening. That’s Boch. There you go.”
To hear the full story, start from 6:50.