You might not realize it, but the most interesting place in the baseball universe is Scottsdale, Arizona. Last week saw a mass bee attack hold up a Giants game, and yesterday brought us our first feud of the 2012 season as Giants manager Bruce Bochy kicked out an Angels scout.
Jeff Schugel, an advance scout assigned to National League teams, was just "sitting there grading arms" as the Giants went through their morning workout. Bochy spotted him and had security tell him to leave. "In 25 years, I've never had that happen," Schugel said.
Schugel didn't immediately leave the ballpark. He walked down the first base line and sat down in the stands before security chased him out of the ballpark. He placed an immediate call to the Angels front office, telling them not to let Giants scouts through the gates at Tempe Diablo Stadium until they open to the public.
The Giants' PR man initially said team rules don't allow scouts to observe workouts until the gates open to the public, but the Angels complained to MLB, and MLB presumably gave the Giants a call to set them straight. Later in the day, GM Brian Sabean said it was all a misunderstanding.
Bochy, on the other hand, wants to make sure you don't misunderstand him: Giants drills are for Giants eyes only.
"You want to go through a fundamental (drill) and I don't think that's the time for scouts to be there," Bochy said. "They have a job to do. I understand that. ... We wanted it cleared. We had a couple things we wanted to work on."
We understand the secrecy and the paranoia, we do—Aubrey Huff's hamstring stretches are classified info. But it's not a good look for Bochy, since MLB rules pretty clearly require teams to provide scouts that sort of access. And Bochy should know better. His brother Joe is a scout in the Padres organization.
Bochy doesn't apologize after booting Angels scout [CSN Bay Area]