Giants close ranks around Jay Jackson: Theres no place for racist comments to our players on s

Gabe Kapler walked up the dugout steps at Chase Field Tuesday afternoon, approached the beat reporters for his usual pregame session and took a seat on the bench.

“Do you guys mind if I start?” he asked.

When Kapler opens the floor in this manner, he’s usually sharing a roster move or passing along an injury update or getting ahead of a sensitive question. The Giants were about to face Madison Bumgarner for the first time in front of an actual crowd and not only had Kapler stuck to his pledge to rest Buster Posey, but also he gave a day off to Brandon Crawford. A lot of fans were bound to be disappointed. Some might have been upset, even.

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Kapler did not want to talk about resting Posey and Crawford.

“I thought you guys might want to talk about Jay Jackson,” he said, “if that’s all right.”

The previous night, Jackson had given away a three-run lead. Then the right-hander, who is Black, opened up Instagram to encounter direct messages that were much more devastating than a hung slider: personal attacks, threats of harm, the ugliest of racial slurs. He took screen shots and shared them on Twitter, not to amplify hate, but because sunlight is still a powerful disinfectant.

“Just to show people that we’re human, too,” he said.

Kapler touched base with Jackson as quickly as he could. He wanted Jackson to know he had the full support of the coaching staff and the organization and that they would rally around him. Part of that support, and part of being an advocate, was to ensure that the psychological burden wouldn’t fall entirely on Jackson to denounce the hate. He was the victim here. He should be able to stand behind a shield, not feel like he has to pick up a sword.

So Kapler came out swinging.

“There’s no place for racist comments to our players on social media, period,” Kapler said. “They are completely unacceptable. Disgusting. And not just in baseball, but in society in general. I was really taken aback. I know our entire clubhouse was.

“We understand that the comments that were made are not at all representative of our incredible fan base. Our fan base is wonderful and especially supportive. And I think what we saw was once Jay shared what happened, the Giants fans came out in bunches in support of Jay with really loving, caring comments, and I thought that was phenomenal.

“We need to talk about this. It needs to be something that isn’t, like, here and gone. It should be discussed because it was really, really disturbing for all of us and it just can’t happen.”

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For a manager who arrived with a reputation for printouts and scripts, efficiencies and experimentation, whose only supposed cultural goal was to get players to believe in the power of Big Data, Kapler has offered a far richer and more nuanced self-portrait. He hasn’t shied away from leveraging the platform that his position affords, whether it was hiring the first uniformed female coach in major-league history or supporting a cause or speaking out against racial injustice. A day earlier, sitting in the same spot on the bench at Chase Field, he appeared to get a bit misty-eyed while answering a question about folding feel and instincts into otherwise objective decisions like when to remove a starting pitcher. Had he gotten better at striking that balance? If so, why?

Yes, he said, he feels confident in his ability to react in the moment, and potentially, to go off script. But not because he had gained so much more wisdom or confidence since his two seasons managing in Philadelphia. It’s because players have bought into a different way of approaching responsibility and toughness. You’re being more responsible to your team when you’re honest about your health or stamina, not when you try to gut through it. On a deep and talented roster, someone else is always ready to step in and offer peak performance. It’s the trust-fall concept: surrender to the belief that someone very capable is ready to step in and support you.

That was Jackson’s state of mind as he reflected on his abusive experience. He grew up in South Carolina. This wasn’t the first time he’d been subjected to racist language. It used to get even worse on the basketball court, he said. As much as he tried to minimize the incident as an unavoidable part of life, it’s human nature that one positive comment will not land with equal heft as one negative comment.

But a few thousand positive comments?

“I’m great,” he said, smiling. “I love that sports are able to do this. To have all the fans, my teammates, coaches, staff, media members, just everybody with the love and support they showed … it’s been unbelievable and I don’t take that for granted. I really appreciate it. It means a lot to see this organization show me that much support.”

Jackson had a long phone conversation with his father, Randy Sr., after losing the lead in a game the Giants eventually won 11-8 in 10 innings. When he spoke to his dad, he hadn’t logged into Instagram yet. He was merely processing the disappointment of a bad outing, of letting his team down, of making them work harder to come away with a victory. His father gave him a helpful piece of advice: don’t hang any more breaking pitches.

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If that had been the extent of the criticism on social media, Jackson wouldn’t have spent another second thinking about it.

“You could tell me I’m bad at baseball or I made a bad pitch or whatever,” he said. “Once you start telling me to end my career or snap my arm or (mention) my family, call me a lot of different names … it’s unnecessary. It’s not just appalling. It’s unnecessary. You have no reason to go out of your way and do that. It is what it is. It’s life. Keep moving. Hopefully I get it out there and change some opinions, I guess.”

Jackson didn’t pitch and he wasn’t the story in the Giants’ 3-1 loss Tuesday night. The focus was always going to be on Bumgarner, who took the mound to “Loud and Heavy” by Cody Jinks — as unforgettable as “Fire on the Mountain” is, it isn’t exactly portable — and he gave up a decent amount of hard contact but demonstrated impeccable threat assessment skills. He didn’t give the Giants a chance to wear him down like they usually do to starting pitchers. He didn’t let them work long at-bats or take walks. That’s because he kept pumping strikes. He worked away on lefty killers like Darin Ruf and Wilmer Flores, who might have won the exit velo battle a time or two but didn’t get anything they could drive out of the ballpark. Bumgarner held the Giants to six hits in seven innings; the only run he allowed came on a home run to Curt Casali.

(What is it with Bumgarner and backup catchers, by the way? They always seem to get him: Casali, Jacob Stallings, Erik Kratz, Tim Federowicz, Rene Rivera, Jeff Mathis, even Donovan Solano’s brother, Jhonatan … the list goes on.)

“We were moving the ball around good, throwing all four pitches,” Bumgarner said. “Command was good, that’s the main thing.”

Donovan Solano, Steven Duggar and Austin Slater were the only players in the Giants lineup, other than right-hander Johnny Cueto, who spent any time as Bumgarner’s teammates and that overlap was minimal. Yet Bumgarner acknowledged that even pitching to that group, while Posey and Crawford watched from the dugout, was “a strange feeling. … Just the uniform, the team, the organization, whatever. It’s just a strange feeling.”

It was strange last year when Bumgarner pitched in San Francisco in front of cardboard cutouts. It still counted as cognitive dissonance to look at the box score Tuesday and see Bumgarner listed as the winning pitcher in the Giants’ 3-1 loss. All of it continues to feel unnatural not just because of what Bumgarner achieved as a Giant, not just because of the heights that they achieved while he slung an entire roster across his broad shoulders in 2014, but also because the book still hasn’t been closed. Since he signed with the Diamondbacks prior to last season, Bumgarner still hasn’t gotten the chance to take the field at Oracle Park and soak up a standing ovation as stoically as he can. He hasn’t gotten a chance to outwit the one player who knows his mind better than anyone. He hasn’t started into his delivery while the former batterymate he calls Gerald is standing in the box. It’s hard to say anyone has moved on, at least in practice if not in spirit, until those things happen. (And with Bumgarner not lined up to pitch in next week’s two-game series in San Francisco, there will be just one more chance in 2021 when Arizona comes to Oracle Park Sept. 28-30.)

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You know that Bruce Bochy would’ve made concessions to nostalgia and theatrics to start Posey on Tuesday. But neither of those factors were compelling enough for Kapler to stray from an extremely disciplined rest schedule — two on, one off — that has worked to keep Posey productive all season. The 34-year-old catcher’s legs were even fresh enough to attempt a daring and successful advance from second to third on a medium fly ball Monday night — an impressive gambit after he’d already caught nine innings and the game lurched into its fourth hour. The long game probably contributed to the decision to rest Crawford, too.

Tuesday night’s game was more strange than sluggish. Cueto allowed all three of his runs in the second inning and one of them was unearned because of a catcher’s error that you might see once a decade in a big league game. Casali attempted to smother a pitch, he ripped off his mask and it happened to land on the baseball. When he went to scoop it up, he violated Rule 5.06 (b)(3)(E), which prohibits a player from using detached equipment in the act of fielding or picking up a ball. Plate umpire Chris Guccione was on it in an instant: he correctly awarded a base to two runners and both scored on Asdrubal Cabrera’s double.

“I can’t say I’ve ever done that before,” Casali said. “It was totally unintentional.”

The result was a somewhat muted loss, no ground lost to the Dodgers and perhaps a fresher roster in the days ahead. The Giants plan to activate infielder Tommy La Stella from the 60-day injured list prior to Wednesday’s game. Brandon Belt is likely to rejoin the team by this time next week, if not sooner.

But there is more than health that goes into the strength of a roster. There is solidarity of purpose. There are trust falls and supportive gestures and a culture in which belief in each other is more important than a belief in Big Data. In that respect, the Giants lost a game Tuesday night but might have emerged stronger than ever.

(Photo: Norm Hall / Getty Images)

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