Henson: Giants’ Bochy triggers spring scout controversy

Manager Bruce Bochy had a scout from the Los Angeles Angels – a team not even in the same league as his San Francisco Giants – removed from the stands. Besides being a ham-handed move by a normally classy manager, forcing scout Jeff Schugel to stop watching a morning workout breached the following:  Unwritten rule No. 1: Don’t impose on a scout from another team a restriction you wouldn’t want imposed on your own scouts.

Bochy said “there were a couple of things we wanted to work on” that he didn’t want Schugel to see.  Like what? Are the Giants going to use a bunt defense nobody has tried before? Did they devise a new way to defense a double steal? Was Bochy teaching the guys the old phantom pickoff play?

The Giants tried to portray the incident as adhering to policy, but within hours they announced that opposing scouts can watch workouts and take notes to their hearts’ content. Two sources said Giants scouts were worried they’d be banished from other stadiums as payback. Giants general manager Brian Sabean said it was all a misunderstanding.

This is a very interesting article about a very curious event.