During spring training workouts today, Giants manager Bruce Bochy had security ask Jeff Schugel, an Angels scout, to leave.
Andrew Baggarly reported the incident for CSN Bay Area and wrote that Schugel was in disbelief when asked to leave.
The way I see it, if a team is having workouts and a manager once them to be closed, they should be closed. Bochy was in the right asking a scout to leave. It's his team, and he should be allowed to coach them without another team's observer watching.
What is interesting to me is the PR mix-up on the Giants' end that came as a result of this mix-up. Baggarly reported in an update to his original post that "Giants public relations man Jim Moorehead initially said that scouts are only allowed in the ballpark prior to the gates opening to pick up tickets or credentials."
Later, though, the Giants flipped that statement as GM Brian Sabean said that the whole incident was a misunderstanding and that he had no problem with other clubs' scouts watching workouts.
That's a little odd to me. Obviously, there is a bit of an internal struggle within the Giants organization about this issue. Perhaps Bochy overreacted, and Sabean is simply trying to articulate that. Even if that is the case, Bochy must have had a reason for asking the scout to leave. I can't imagine he would suddenly on a whim decide he didn't want scouts watching the team's workouts.
That being said, I don't know what the regulations are for scouts being allowed to watch workouts before the stadiums are open to the public, but I still feel that Bochy has a right to a private workout if he so chooses. Football workouts are almost exclusively closed, so why should baseball be any different?
Maybe he could have handled Schugel's dismissal a little better (having security come to chase him away seems a little harsh), but nonetheless the Giants should have supported their manager's actions rather than appearing indecisive and then ultimately denouncing his actions.
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