There was 1 controversial surprise guest at SF Giants ceremony for Brandon Belt

The SF Giants celebrated first baseman Brandon Belt on Saturday at Oracle Park ahead of a game against the Miami Marlins. While many of the guests in attendance were obvious like Belt's former teammates Buster Posey and Hunter Pence or his former manager Bruce Bochy, there was one surprise guest in Gabe Kapler.

The former Giants manager was indeed Belt's skipper for his last few seasons in San Francisco and was his manager in 2021 which was a career year for Belt. Kapler is now the general manager of the Marlins so it makes sense that he'd be there to watch his current team.

Former SF Giants manager Gabe Kapler surprisingly attends Brandon Belt ceremony

To see Kapler sit right next to Bochy on the field for the ceremony was a bit jarring but it sounds like, at least from the video above, fans in the stadium gave Kapler a pretty nice reception. Obviously, a lot of Giants fans are not all that fond of Kapler as his unique personality and style definitely rubbed some people the wrong way, but he still was the manager for the best regular season in franchise history.

For all his faults, the Giants did have a record of 295-248 in his four seasons with San Francisco. The miracle 107-win 2021 season obviously did a lot of heavy lifting with that overall record as the team was basically .500 under Kapler outside of that.

But after Bob Melvin's tenure as manager was similarly mediocre and with how Tony Vitello's managerial tenure has started, maybe fans who were once skeptical of Kapler now look back and realize that he was not so bad. Maybe the Giants just keep on fielding mediocre teams and hoping for that same 2021 miracle when that was really a one in a million type of season.

It's nice that Kapler got to be there to support Belt, though. Belt did have a phenomenal year in 2021 as he hit .274/.378/.597 with 29 home runs and 59 runs batted in across just 97 games. It still hurts to think about how the Giants could have made a deeper postseason run had Belt not been hit by a pitch and broke his thumb in late September. Plus, Kapler was there when Belt anointed himself as captain of the team which was one of the most hilarious and iconic moments of his career.

Still, Belt had a phenomenal Giants career and he deserved all of the adulation he got on Saturday. With the struggles the Giants have had at first base this season, hopefully fans now realize just how good and reliable Belt was both defensively and offensively.

As Belt put it in his typical deadpan fashion: "When I think about this day and the Giants organization doing this for me, the only thing that really pops in mind is...it's about time.”

In a way, Kapler and Belt are quite similar. Both were polarizing when they were with the Giants but after they're gone fans look back on them in a different light. Something tells me that there won't be a Gabe Kapler Celebration Day at Oracle Park anytime soon, but it was still nice, albeit surprising, to see that he was in attendance.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow