As he navigates his first year in the big leagues, Giants manager Tony Vitello has yet to showcase much of the fiery personality that made him a household name for collegiate baseball fans — though he has had several opportunities to do so.Following Vitello’s third ejection of the 2026 MLB season this week, Mike Krukow wants to see the first-year skipper assert himself more in the face of what the broadcaster deems bullying behavior from umpires.
“The umpires. I mean, even more so than players, pay their dues. They’re in the minor leagues for a long time,” Krukow said Friday on KNBR’s “Murph & Markus” show. “That entire group, when they finally get to the big leagues, they have a mental toughness because they did what it took to get to the big leagues, and the road to the big leagues is normally twice as long for an umpire as it is for a player.
“And I do think that they’ve held that against Tony Vitello, 100 percent, and I think they bully him, and I think that he needs to rise above it and get back in their face.”
Krukow spoke, in particular, of Vitello’s...