Ex-SF Giants manager Gabe Kapler had quite the side hustle this year

Whether the San Francisco Giants were rolling or floundering, there was one thing manager Gabe Kapler did consistently: record selfie videos.

All season long, Kapler was making a little extra cash by recording videos on Cameo, the website that allows fans to pay celebrities to send a short, personalized video to them.

The now-former Giants manager has been one of Cameo’s top baseball celebrities in terms of volume of responses. Out of the nearly 460 people in the “Baseball” category, Kapler is one of only 24 with more than 250 reviews on their videos (he currently has 252 reviews). As of publication, he was charging $225 per video.

Kapler falls in a unique category of the baseball-related celebrities on Cameo. Sure, there are several Hall of Famers, scores of active and former players and managers, broadcasters and even the occasional fan.

Kapler stands out among the group in terms of response volume, too. From Feb. 15, the first pitchers and catchers report day in MLB, until time of publication, Kapler had 48 overall reviews of his Cameos on his profile. That’s 13 more than the next-closest manager, Boone.

Cameo allows people to post the videos they received under the creator’s reviews, thus letting everyone see the celebrity’s message. Thanks to that, we have 41 Kapler videos to work with.

Those clips take you with Kapler on a journey through the Giants season, and through San Francisco. Kapler makes note in many videos of his recording locations: spring training in Arizona, outside of Coors Field in Denver, the streets of Los Angeles, the visiting manager’s office in Cincinnati, a Philadelphia hotel.

In another video, Kapler is very obviously driving a car while recording, which he acknowledges is “probably not the safest thing.” That one received a 3-star review, with the recipient saying Kapler’s driving “sorta made it less genuine.”

The new price means that Kapler is currently charging more per video than eight Baseball Hall of Famers — Ryne Sandberg, John Smoltz, Eddie Murray, Tim Raines, Tom Glavine, Edgar Martinez, Paul Molitor and Andre Dawson — and the same price as another, Johnny Bench. 

Why would an MLB manager record nearly six videos a month on average while his team slogs through a middling season? The take-home pay was likely a little more than $1,000 a month, far less than the millions he likely made to manage the Giants. (His exact salary isn’t known, but USA Today columnist Bob Nightengale’s recent column saying MLB managers are underpaid reported that 24 of 30 managers are making more than $1 million. Kapler signed a contract extension with the Giants after the 2021 season.)

Besides pocketing some fun money, one plausible reason for his side hustle is the chance for Kapler to make a connection directly with fans. On almost all of the videos from the 2023 season, Kapler sent the video recipient well wishes from himself and the Giants. It tracks with all of his internet history, in which he consistently embraced being a San Franciscan, given the bike rides around town and the various Instagram videos where he gave his takes on local food and coffee spots.

In his lengthy Instagram statement one day after he was fired, Kapler called the City by the Bay “spectacular” and said he felt a “genuine connection, perhaps not to everyone everywhere of course, but to most” during his time with the Giants.

“Each morning and late night riding my bike along the Embarcadero to North Beach, I felt like I had the support of so many in this the city, and I will carry that with me,” Kapler wrote.

While he may have been shown the door at Oracle Park, on Cameo at least, Kapler is a hit. He’s earned a 4.96-star rating out of 5, with 97% of his 252 reviewers giving him 5 stars. He’s also never received a 1-star review.

It isn’t obvious what Kapler will do next. Based on the publicly available videos on his profile, he hasn’t recorded any Cameos since before his final series as Giants manager.

But there is one way to tell his Cameo account is still active. Since July 2020, Kapler’s headshot on the page had showed him in a Giants hat, most recently with the Giants’ Pride flag logo on it.

Now? It’s a hat-less, logo-less headshot.