Angelo Cataldi Brings Up 2015 Dodgers Incident With Gabe Kapler
The Phils won last night, 4-3.
Andrew McCutchen played center field in place of Odubel Herrera, who was put on administrative league following his Monday arrest on domestic violence charges.
Today manager Gabe Kapler joined Angelo Cataldi on the WIP Morning Show and said this about the situation:
“Based on a policy that was agreed upon between the players and the league, it’s in the league’s hands. It’s something we can’t address specifically.”
Right, so the Phillies literally cannot do anything here. Gotta wait for the process to play out via league administration. Kapler went on to say that there’s no place in sports, society, or the organization for domestic violence:
“It’s not anything that any of us condone.”
Cataldi then went into the LA Dodgers story, the report that came out a while back alleging that Kapler did not call police after he was told that a pair of Dodger minor league players may have assaulted a 17-year-old girl. Kapler explained his side of the story via a lengthy statement, and the exchange on WIP went something like this, after the jump:
Cataldi: Gabe, there were allegations both this offseason and when you first were hired by the Phillies that, rather than report an incident that you were a part of when you worked for the Dodgers, you attempted to mediate it; did that change the way you see the situation now, or your decision making in situations like this?
Kapler: Again, Angelo, I hate to not give you what you need here, but it’s not something we can speak to specifically.
Cataldi: But you can speak to what happened, you can talk about the incident in 2015; did it change your perspective at all?
Kapler: Well I’ve talked about it at length Angelo. I’ve made public statements on the matter and I don’t think it’s necessary to revisit.
Cataldi: Alright, very good. Well I guess we’ll be monitoring (it), can you tell us the team reaction? Was there much of a reaction?
Kapler: Again, I’m not speaking to the situation directly.
Cataldi: Alright, I understand.
It was a little awkward, but I do believe Angelo is at his best when he’s interviewing players and coaches 1v1 and putting the corny radio shtick on the back burner.
I’m also trying to determine how I feel about this line of questioning. I understand the Dodger story and the relevance to the Herrera incident, but the quirk here is that Kapler has no say in this matter, at least not yet, not while Herrera is in league administration.
This has literally been taken out of the Phillies’ hands, so Kapler, Matt Klentak, John Middleton, etc – there’s really nothing for them to do or say other than denounce domestic violence and defer to the league. It’s also premature to talk about whether a guy has or has not played his last game for the team while the process is just getting started, while we’re still trying to do our due diligence here and at least go through the investigative process.
That’s my take. Everybody wants to kick the dude off the team right away, but these processes are in place for a reason, so that people can get a fair shake and as we gather facts and evidence. Then, if we’ve got video of the assault or an admission from Odubel, you boot him off the team and move on.
Anyway, here’s the full audio; the Herrera stuff goes to the 3:30 mark or so, then Kapler talks about Cesar Hernandez, Andrew McCutchen, and other topics: