On the other side of the country, Washington was beginning impeachment hearings.
In San Francisco, an ostensibly celebratory news conference more resembled an interrogation that many fans would have liked to conclude with an ouster.
Gabe Kapler officially was introduced as the 39th manager in Giants history Wednesday, welcomed not with applause but an abundance of questions about his admitted mishandling of multiple alleged assault cases in 2015, when he was the Dodgers’ farm director underneath Farhan Zaidi.
Zaidi, who has been making the rounds trying to 1) vouch for Kapler and 2) defend Kapler’s actions as more ignorant than malicious, opened the proceedings by saying Kapler “never tried to hide anything,” referring to multiple cases involving minor leaguers, the most notable one involving two women allegedly assaulting a 17-year-old girl in a Dodger’s hotel room, footage of which one Dodgers prospect posted to Snapchat. The victim later told police one of the prospects had sexually assaulted her, which Kapler maintains he was not informed about. The Dodgers never went to police.
“The incidents that happened, [Kapler] reported up the chain of command,” Zaidi said at Oracle Park in the hour-long news conference. “… The baseball operations group referred him to legal counsel in LA, and everything we did from that point forward was done collectively as an organization.”
Repeatedly, Zaidi tried to soften and spread the spotlight, suggesting it was more a Dodgers problem than a Kapler one. They listened to the team’s legal counsel, which advised them to ask the victim and her family whether they wanted to go to police. Eventually the victim did, without the Dodgers at her side.
The duo both pinpointed their mistake as not seeking experts’ opinions, though neither outright said he should have called 911.
“The notion of support goes way beyond asking whether things should be reported to the police,” said Zaidi, adding, “I don’t think we did enough.”
Kapler concurred. He said his first call should have been to his mother to learn his next step. Instead, it was to Dodgers officials, and the incidents were not known publicly until the Washington Post reported on them in February.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t make all the right moves,” said Kapler, who reportedly tried to organize a dinner with himself, the involved players and victim. “Everything I did I acted on from a place of goodness and from my heart and wanting to do the right thing, but I was naive. I was in over my skis and trying to do things on my own when it was very clear that I needed counsel.”
Kapler and Zaidi said they have spoken to experts on domestic violence and assault, but did not want to reveal details of those conversations. Apart from seeking experts in the field, they did not explain what they should have done differently.
Zaidi suggested implementing organizational programs that better educate players so these incidents don’t exist in the first place.
“We as an organization pledge to be much more proactive and aggressive,” said Zaidi, who along with new GM Scott Harris flanked Kapler, CEO Larry Baer watching from the crowd. “… Greater education at the minor league level. There are MLB guidelines for a certain education and training that has to be done, but clearly it’s not enough because these things are still happening.”
The choice did not have to be Kapler, who arrived at SFO with enough baggage to fill a plane. Astros bench coach Joe Espada and Rays bench coach Matt Quatraro were finalists, either of whom would have been just fine with the fanbase, neither of whom would have brought the line of questioning that Zaidi and Kapler had to answer.
But Zaidi, backed by a mandate from ownership that this would be his call, went with a coach and person familiar to him, someone whose checkered past is not news to him, someone whose job now will forever be linked to him.
“We felt like it was our responsibility to select the person who was right for the job,” Zaidi said. “… It was a question of whether we were going to judge someone based on some of those perception issues or what we knew to be true.”