© Kelley L Cox | 2016 Jul 10
A truly hilarious story was broken by The Athletic on Sunday evening, revealing that Madison Bumngarner has been competing in competitive rodeo events under the alias “Mason Saunders.”
While the story stipulated that that Bumgarner’s roping ‘hobby” is an open secret in MLB circles, his former manager Bruce Bochy seemed as surprised as anyone when asked about it on the Murph & Mac show Monday morning.
“It is crazy,” Bochy said. “How it took so long for someone to find out about it too, I mean it’s not like he’s a little guy. He loves it. The man’s got a passion for it almost as much as he does baseball, but it’s scary. It really is scary when you think about a guy that is roping. I’ve been to the rodeo so many times, including the finals in Las Vegas, you see guys with fingers missing and they don’t quite catch it right and the rope catches on the saddle and it just comes right off.”
Though Bochy acted like he wasn’t privy to Bumgarner’s rodeo endeavors, he did reveal another offseason activity that is almost as crazy.
“You think ‘Madison, you’re looking at signing your biggest contract ever to set yourself up for life and you’re going to risk it on the rodeo?’ But he’s got confidence. I mean there’s some stories I do know that he probably wouldn’t want me to share, with him bear hunting, and the tight situations he’s gotten himself into.”
Bochy said he was going to ask Bumgarner before he goes into more specifics on that one, but he did mention that it’s serious business.
“It’s mano a mano.”
As for Bochy, the retired manager joked that even though his days in the dugout are over for now, he’d be open to helping Bum during his next rodeo event.
“I’m disappointed he didn’t call me to help out, I could’ve been part of that team. I can’t rope but I can wrestle a steer, I could bring one down for him if that’s what he’s doing.”
Listen to the full interview below.
