» THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT KAPLER
The San Francisco Giants announced Tuesday evening that they’ve hired ex-MLB player Gabe Kapler as their successor to Bruce Bochy.
Kapler managed the last two years for the Philadelphia Phillies, and before that he was the Los Angeles Dodgers’ director of player development under Farhan Zaidi, now the Giants’ president of baseball operations. While with the Dodgers, Kapler reportedly mishandled allegations that players in the organization had committed sexual assault.
Zaidi has classified that series of decisions as a mistake by the Dodgers organization rather than Kapler himself, but it is one part of why many Giants fans were unhappy with Kapler’s hiring.
Here are some other fast facts about Kapler:
• Kapler has been with the Giants before — the Yomiuri Giants, with whom he played 38 games in 2005 before returning home and rejoining the Red Sox.
• Kapler is one of eight Jewish managers in baseball history. Another is Bob Melvin of the Oakland A’s. The others: Jeff Newman (who managed the A’s for 10 games in 1986), Brad Ausmus, Norm Sherry, Lou Boudreau, Andy Cohen and Lipman Pike.
• Kapler’s parents met as antiwar activists in the 1960s. Brooklynites, they relocated to California in the 1970s. Michael Kapler is a classical pianist. Judy Kapler is a teacher.
• Kapler has the Star of David tattooed on his left calf. His right calf carries the dates of the Holocaust
and the motto “Never Again.”
• Kapler was born in Hollywood and attended Taft High School. Notable Taft alums include Ice Cube, Robin Yount, Lisa Kudrow, Jeff Fisher and Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady on The Brady Bunch.
• Kapler was on the field when the Red Sox broke their 86-year World Series jinx.
• Kapler (6-foot-2) can dunk — all sorts of ways, too. At least he could in 2014.
• Kapler was hit by a car when he was eight. Also at eight, he wrote a school paper that years later was a factor in him leaving the Red Sox to play in Japan. He told the New York Times: “I did it more for the life experience than anything else. And ever since I wrote that report, I’ve been fascinated by everything that an 8year-old associates with a country far, far away.”
• He played for six major league teams: Detroit, Texas, Colorado, Boston, Milwaukee, and Tampa Bay.
• He grew up in Reseda, the Southern California town immortalized by Tom Petty.
• Kapler is divorced. He and his ex-wife — they were high school sweethearts — have two sons, Chase Ty, 20, and Dane Rio, 18.
• He lost a home in the Woolsey Fire that burned in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties in November 2018. He is active on the issue of California wildfires, speaking to The Athletic about it a year ago: “Use it as a way to come together... Talk about it. Shine light on it. Raise awareness.”
• Kapler is a fitness freak.
• His Twitter page features pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. He has 62,500 followers.