Sports Illustrated’s Philadelphia Phillies season preview article has turned out to be controversial enough to get the attention of the manager.
As part of the preview, the article featured an anonymous scout’s take on the member of the team the scout would never want in his own clubhouse. For the Phillies, one scout listed outfielder Odubel Herrera, but the originally printed comments were akin to character assassination.
Tom Ley of Deadspin preserved the original writing, in which the scout said Herrera was “like a clown” and a “f—— dog.” SI has since edited the article to tone down the scout’s criticisms, but the damage was already done, and manager Gabe Kapler blasted the scout on Saturday.
Phillies manager Gabe Kapler lashes out at anonymous scout who ridiculed Odubel Herrera, calling it B.S. and ‘’factually inaccurate.’#Phillies
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) March 30, 2019
It’s not often that something like this becomes a story, but this one is. The practice of quoting anonymous scouts is not new, but most of the criticisms made in those instances don’t feel quite so personal, which prompted the response from Kapler.
Even Phillies icons have tripped up a bit when discussing the sometimes mercurial Herrera. On the scout’s part, however, it felt unnecessarily malicious and should never have been printed in the first place.
