A former slugger thinks his ex-team is taking a big swing and a miss by interviewing a woman for its open manager position.
Aubrey Huff, who won two World Series with the San Francisco Giants in 2010 and 2012, is critical of the team interviewing assistant coach Alyssa Nakken to potentially take over as manager.
Nakken reportedly became the first woman to interview for the job in major league history earlier this week.
Huff posted on social media that the Giants have become “embarrassing” as an organization and praised Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy for “bringing an old school” mentality.
But that wasn’t the end of what Huff had to say — he doubled down on his beliefs in an interview on OutKick The Morning w/Charly Arnolt.
“I 100% believe in what I tweeted there. I think analytics and the woke, progressive nerds in the front offices of today’s baseball organizations — the only way they can get into baseball is if they figure out a way to invent these ridiculous stats that mean nothing to score woke political points, especially in San Francisco, and to be a part of the game they could never play,” Huff said.
“And, when you have guys like Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy, you even hear Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter talking about it pregame, how there’s no iPads in the dugout, it’s old school, gut-feeling managing, I totally agree. I never thought I would agree with A-Rod in my life, but I did there.”
Despite the fact that Nakken has been an assistant coach with the team for three years, Huff worried that having a woman in charge could have negative consequences in the clubhouse.
“To me, I believe a woman … if she’s got dreams and goals, go for it, fine. But in my opinion, there’s nothing but bad things could happen as a woman in a Major League Baseball clubhouse with a bunch of men,” Huff said. “Men aren’t hardwired to take orders from a woman. We’re just not.
“Especially when a woman has never played Major League Baseball with 97 mph coming in at ’em. How is she gonna gain respect?”
Huff, who also played for Tampa Bay, Houston, Baltimore and Detroit in his 13-year career, also brought up potential ‘MeToo’ consequences if she gets the job.
“What about the ’believe all women #MeToo movement’? God forbid she slaps some guy’s ass by accident — who knows? All kinds of things could go wrong. Nothing good could happen.”
He continued that Nakken being interviewed is simply a move to satisfy “woke” onlookers and score “political points.”
“The only reason she’s being looked at is — she won’t get hired — it’s to check a box, political points. I don’t think she’ll get the job, but it’s just like, ‘Look, we’re woke, we’re San Francisco, we gave her a look,’” he said.
Huff added that he didn’t think Nakken is nearly as qualified for the job as other candidates.
However, she was a three-time all-conference selection and a four-time Academic All American while at Sacramento State from 2009-12 and earned her master’s in sports management from the University of San Francisco after interning for the Giants’ baseball operations department in 2014.