Amid the insane pressure and expectations backloaded into professional sports, Gabe Kapler is at once the chillest and most engaging man in the room.
Gabe Kapler’s looks throughout courtesy of Wilkes Bashford SF, wilkesbashford.com; HQ Milton watch, hqmilton.com; hair by Chris Cream, Dogpatch Barbershop, dogpatchbarbershop.com.
Before each game, San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler walks from the dugout to home plate and exchanges lineup cards with an opponent. Like many things in baseball, it’s a daily ritual. Kapler says the team now uses the pregame exchange to invite someone from the community to join the trek across the Bermuda grass surrounding the perfect circle of packed dirt at home plate.
“I recently asked a guy who accompanied me to home plate if he was excited to be on the field at Oracle Park,” says Kapler, now in this fourth season with the Giants, who won a franchise-record 107 games under him in 2021. “The guy looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, it’s amazing, man!’ And I turned to him and said, ‘You know what? I feel the same way.’ And I genuinely meant it. Every time I step on the grass in the field or go to the ballpark, I’m thrilled with the privilege of this. It’s my workplace.”
Ballparks have been Kapler’s place of employment since 1995 when, at 19, the Detroit Tigers drafted him in the 57th round (1,487th overall)—not exactly a vote of confidence by the scouting departments of MLB teams. Ignoring the noise of evaluations, Kapler knew he had intangibles like grit and tenacity that couldn’t be measured by scouts. He churned through the minors for a few years and was voted player of the year in 1998, making his MLB debut the same year. Kapler played for six teams through 2010. He was part of the Red Sox 2004 World Series team that broke “the curse” and even played in Japan for the Yomiuri Giants.
Despite its penchant for spitting out players like so many sunflower shells, pro baseball isn’t a bad way to make a living. The Giants’ skipper, now 47 with massive arms and a broad chest, looks like he could still play. If someone sticks around professional baseball for as long as Kapler has, he’s usually a bit of a vagabond. Seasonal slumps happen, and jobs are lost. Trades emerge. Management decides a player or coach is expendable and hires someone with a perceived knack for changing a franchise’s fortunes. These are all consequences of the game. Kapler’s relatively quick ascension to coaching after his playing days included stints as the manager of the Phillies (he was let go for a bigger name, Joe Girardi, who was summarily fired last year in the middle of the season) and, earlier, the director of player development for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Players love Kapler’s approachable coaching style, yet no one knows what will happen after his current contract expires after the 2024 season. Before a big June surge, the Giants hovered around .500 in the brutal National League West for the first half of the 2023 season. In the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world of professional sports, some quarters might consider this a failure. Managers are often scapegoats. Does it bother Kapler, or, more to the point, does he worry about losing his job?
“I don’t. I set it aside,” he says. And this is where it’s important to know that Kapler is different than most managers in the game. While his bona fides rest comfortably inside the white lines of a baseball diamond, he’s more than a guy who puts on a poly-blend Giants uniform nearly every day and scribbles out lineups to earn a victory. “I want to win every day,” he says. “I’m very competitive and fight like mad, but I’m a man before I’m a baseball man. There are a thousand things that I can grind and do really well.”
Kapler leans forward. He’s one of those who possess riveting eye contact, almost daring the listener to look away (hint: you can’t). “I’ll just share this with you,” he says. “I think this might be helpful context. When you get into professional sports, you don’t have a choice but to get really thick skin—it happens fast. Because when you walk into a major league clubhouse for the first time—actually, any professional locker room— you get picked apart nonstop by your teammates, coaches and fans, and it’s like you’re living in a clubhouse for 162 games. You’re exposed. There are good days and bad days.”
And there are days when the town where you reside matters most. Another Kapler anomaly: While most professional athletes and coaches live elsewhere during the offseason, the Giants’ skipper lives in North Beach year-round. “I feel at home here,” says Kapler, who grew up in Los Angeles. “I love the culture, the art and the history, but I think it’s something more visceral than that. I’ve seen San Francisco from just about every angle—the hills, the views, the bay; they speak to me.”
The city’s inclusive ethos also appeals to Kapler, who launched the Pipeline for Change Foundation (pipelineforchangefoundation.com). “Our nonprofit is devoted to creating a more diverse group of decision-makers in sports,” he says. “Diverse leaders make better businesses, better sports organizations and a better society. So that’s always been my vision, and San Francisco is a great spot to have that vision, which is why I feel supported here.”
Diversity also extends to the field, of course, and beyond attracting players from baseball-crazy countries like the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Cuba, baseball struggles to attract minorities, especially African Americans. “Is the game accessible to everyone? I think it’s an interesting question. I think the answer is probably no, and we need to do a better job as an industry of making the game more accessible, particularly to underserved communities,” says Kapler. “I think the Bay Area is a great place to start, and I know there’s a lot of good work already being done here.”
Look at a transcript of a conversation with Kapler, and one word pops up frequently: work. Preparing, refining and toiling are themes that run through his life. When you’re a guy who was drafted in the 57th round, a cloud of irrelevancy always looms. So he works harder than everyone in the room. He arrives earlier at the ballpark than players, coaches and most staff. Again, ritual plays a part in the day. He hits the gym at the ballpark, showers and works on a lineup. “I want everything done so that when the players and staff arrive at Oracle Park, I’m available for all conversations,” he says.
Before games, Kapler might receive throws at first base from players like Brandon Crawford, Casey Schmidtt and JD Davis, assessing the ball’s flight and rotation. There’s a measure of joy mixed with analysis in all of this; inside every throw from a big leaguer resides a kid wearing an ill-fitting uniform and saggy socks. The kids’ game invariably transforms into a job. “But you know what’s fun? Playing catch,” says Kapler, grinning, as if he’s saying this for the first time. He mimes the act of throwing. “It’s such a simple thing. You just pick up a baseball and throw it really hard. There’s something kind of beautiful in its purity, right?”
Kapler’s words float in the air like an Eephus pitch. And with that, he heads off to that uniquely American place with stadium lights, impossibly green turf and chalk baselines running from home to yellow foul poles towering above McCovey Cove. Sure, it’s a field of dreams, but to Kapler, it’s merely another day at the office he loves.
Photography by: Tracy Easton
