Brian Sabean hopped on KNBR for an interview on Thursday and, unsurprisingly, was asked about the whole Scott Cousins/Buster Posey incident.
You know, the play at the plate that knocked Sabean's franchise catcher and best offensive player out for the season? Yeah, that one. Turns out, Sabean, like Bruce Bochy before him, is not too happy about it, and absolutely lashed Cousins on the air.
"Why not be hard-nosed?" Sabean said, per Hank Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. "If I never hear from Cousins again or he never plays another game in the big leagues, I think we'll all be happy."
BOOM. I mean, it's one thing when two players go back and forth in the media. Or even a coach and a player. Or Ozzie Guillen and random people on Twitter. But this the general manager of the world champs, straight beating on a random role player for a team that isn't even in the division.
And Sabean wasn't done.
"He chose to be a hero in my mind, and if that's his flash of fame, that's as good as it's going to get, pal," Sabean said. "We'll have a long memory. Believe me, we've talked to [former catcher Mike] Matheny about how this game works. You can't be that out-and-out overly aggressive. I'll put it as politically as I can state it: There's no love lost, and there shouldn't be."
Naturally, this didn't go over well with Cousins' camp. His agent, Matt Sosnick, who also represents the Giants' Freddy Sanchez, didn't appreciate the comments.
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"I am really hoping that he was speaking in the heat of the moment and out of emotion," Sosnick said. "Because if he wasn't, he took a bad situation and certainly made it a lot worse."
Sosnick also said that if it "Buster Posey or [Aubrey] Huff or [Cody] Ross had run over [Marlins catcher] John Buck and injured him in the same play, the Giants players would be celebrating a great hard play that gave their team a victory" and that Sabean wouldn't have thought the play was dirty.
That's a valid point, of course, but it's pretty obvious that Sabean believes -- having seen the slowed-down version of the play -- that Cousins was "hunting" for Posey.
"If you listen to the kid's comments after the fact, he pretty much decided and it was premeditated that if he got a chance, he was going to blow up the catcher to dislodge the ball," Sabean said. "And if you watch frame by frame from different angles, he does not take the path to the plate to try to score.
"He goes after Buster, right shoulder on right shoulder, and to me, that's malicious."
Cousins, who has received death threats because of the play, didn't want to comment on the situation any further.
"I've said my piece," Cousins said. "I feel horrible for Posey. The aftermath of this has not been fun."
It certainly hasn't. Death threats aren't a joke, and no one wants to become "famous" for hurting a player that's beloved by fans and players alike.
But there's also a pretty good argument that since Cousins is, you know, still playing baseball, that the aftermath of the incident hasn't been as bad for him as it's been for Posey.
That's just an argument that Brian Sabean doesn't need to be making on the radio.
