At Giants camp, Tony Vitello goes on a tangent about the process that got him there

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — One week into his first major-league spring training as manager, Tony Vitello discovered something he hadn’t anticipated: big-leaguers listen longer than college kids. Yet on Monday morning it was Vitello who couldn’t stick to the script.

Seated in the Scottsdale Stadium dugout, the new San Francisco Giants skipper hijacked his own media session with an unprompted, minute-by-minute recounting of the chaotic October days that carried him out of Knoxville and into the Bay Area. He asked reporters when they first believed he would take the job, then answered himself with a blow-by-blow narrative that blurred the line between clarification and catharsis.

Vitello’s central complaint: premature media reports—most notably an Oct. 18 Athletic story that the Giants were “closing in” on him—compressed a delicate four-day window in which he needed assurances that his Tennessee assistants would land on their feet. “Somebody decides they think they’ve got the information,” Vitello said, “but the final blow was about four days later.” He insisted the lag between offer and acceptance was shorter than widely assumed and that leaked speculation rattled his players, his staff and his own thought process.

The fallout inside the Volunteers program was immediate. During a routine practice, Vitello noticed his first- and third-base coaches “freaking out,” a distraction that forced him to pause drills and address a restless locker room. That night he retreated to his Knoxville condo, ate pizza, drank a beer and tried to tune out the Alabama-Tennessee football hype by watching Seinfeld reruns. “When your name is on the ticker,” he said, “that kind of causes you to turn on whatever the hell I put on.”

Vitello declined to single out any reporter, claiming he still hasn’t read the coverage, but admitted the episode left scars. “It might have changed the course of history if I know who leaked it,” he said cryptically. The timing of Monday’s rehash—minutes after a Fox Sports spot with Ken Rosenthal, co-author of the Oct. 18 piece—only underscored how raw the subject remains.

The detour was striking for a manager who has never played or coached in the professional ranks and is still persuading outsiders he can scale the learning curve. Giants officials hired him believing his communication chops and intellectual curiosity would offset inexperience, but even Vitello conceded the college anecdotes are piling up. “Probably time, after today, to divide the line in the sand,” he said. “If someone’s watching, they might be like, ‘Hey, let’s make sure you know what shade of orange you’re wearing there.’”

For now, the orange is gone, replaced by Giants black and orange. Whether Monday’s airing of grievances was a one-time purge or a sign of lingering hesitation will determine how quickly Vitello can turn the page and focus on the season ahead.