SAN FRANCISCO -- The latest edition of the Bay Bridge Series features a manager looking to establish himself and another who was just named Manager of the Year. But three decades ago, the roles were reversed for Mark Kotsay and Gabe Kapler.
Asked before Tuesday's game about his relationship with Kotsay, Kapler revealed that the two entered Cal State Fullerton together as freshmen in 1993, but their college careers quickly went in different directions.
"Mark Kotsay went on to be a very good baseball player at Cal State Fullerton," Kapler said, smiling, "And I was politely asked to leave the program."
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Kapler admits he had some maturing to do back then, and it wasn't until he got to Moorpark College a year later that he was able to put himself on the path to professional baseball. In the meantime, Kotsay turned into one of the best players in the nation. He was the Most Outstanding Player of the College World Series in 1995 and a two-time All-American before being taken ninth overall in the 1996 draft.
"That's my biggest memory of Mark is how good of a college baseball player he was, and I obviously played against him quite a bit at the major-league level," said Kapler. "A great dude and a great baseball man. I'm really happy for him."
Kotsay, in his first year as manager of the A's, is taking part in the rivalry games for the first time. A few minutes after Kapler spoke to a big crowd of reporters, Kotsay passed on his own funny memory from Cal State Fullerton.
"My memory of Gabe was [him] driving up in a ragtop 5.0 black Mustang for practice and parking in [head coach] Augie Garrido's spot," he said. "I think if you asked him that he might deny it, but that's my memory of Gabe on the first practice day. Gabe was young, just as I was ... we were just trying to survive and trying to learn how to become grown men and adults and make good decisions."
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Thirty years later, the 46-year-olds are in very different situations with their clubs. The Giants are coming off an impressive 8-3 road trip and are once again right in the race for an NL West title, and potentially much more. Kotsay was hired to lead an A's team that traded Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Sean Manaea and others and is going through another round of rebuilding. But young A's teams tend to be dangerous, particularly in these rivalry games, and the A's entered the series with a 9-8 record.
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Three decades after he met Kotsay for the first time, Kapler made it clear that he's certainly not going to underestimate his club.
"It's a different lineup obviously and a club that is undoubtedly managed slightly different between [Bob Melvin] and Kots, but it's still a well-constructed roster and we would always expect any Oakland A's roster to be kind of similar to ours in some ways, a little bit mix-and-match, you're ready for platoons, ready for pinch-hit opportunities," he said. "Look, this is a team that isn't going to surprise us. It's a high-quality baseball team. All of the Major League Baseball teams are high-quality, but this one in particular I think we have to assume has some hidden talents and ones that will emerge in the next couple of games."