SF Giants welcome Omar Vizquel to Oracle Park despite domestic violence history

The SF Giants held a pregame ceremony for longtime clubhouse manager Mike Murphy on Sunday afternoon, honoring his 65-year tenure with the organization. The team invited many former members of the organization and featured nearly two dozen players on the field. One of the players included was former big-league shortstop Omar Vizquel. Vizquel had a 24-year MLB career spanning 1989-2012, playing for the Giants from 2005-2008.

Content Warning: Domestic Violence/Sexual Harassment

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— Marc Delucchi (@maddelucchi) August 27, 2023

The Giants did not list Vizquel among the players slated to be featured in the announcement leading up to the ceremony. Given his relatively short tenure with the organization and the fact that he has also been accused of sexual harassment and domestic violence over the past few years, it was shocking to see him included in the ceremony.

Vizquel's second wife, Bianca, said he abused her throughout their six-year relationship. In fact, Vizquel was arrested in 2016 following an argument. Ken Rosenthal and Katie Strang of The Athletic reported on the relationship in 2020.

Here is an excerpt from The Athletic's report on the arrest:

The incident in 2016 began with an argument, Blanca said, and it quickly escalated. Blanca retreated to her bedroom and placed dumbbells against her door to keep Vizquel from entering, she said, but he barged into the room, screamed at her and pushed her, forcing her to fall, injuring her shin and breaking off multiple nails.
Blanca said she grabbed her phone, ran into her bathroom, locked herself inside and called a neighbor who befriended the couple when they moved into the suburban Seattle neighborhood in 2014. The neighbor answered his cell phone while at his child’s basketball tournament.
“She was crying and talking quietly. She said that Omar had beat her and she locked herself in her room and he’s outside of the room and (she) didn’t know what to do,” the neighbor said.
The neighbor, who asked to not be publicly identified, called his wife at home to alert her to the situation. He then called the King County Sheriff’s Office. According to dispatch reports, law enforcement arrived at the scene just before 1 p.m.
Blanca and Omar had been fighting over the previous five days because of “compiling circumstances,” according to a summary report of the incident. The report summarizes that: “Blanca said Omar said to her, ‘Why are you treating me like shit?’ then he pushed her with both of his hands to her body so hard that it knocked her over backwards to the floor causing her to hit her left shin on the corner of the bed and break her nails trying to catch her fall.”
Blanca’s injuries were photographed and a probable cause statement noted a laceration on her leg where she struck the bed frame. Omar, who told police that Blanca had tripped, was booked for fourth-degree domestic assault and transported to a jail in nearby Issaquah.
Vizquel was never prosecuted for assault. In a letter to the Sammamish prosecuting attorney, Blanca asked the prosecutor to drop the charges. In the letter, she refuted the official record of what happened that night, explained that she loved her husband deeply, and said she wanted to work through the pair’s marital problems through counseling. The Athletic reviewed that letter, which Blanca said Omar pressured her to sign, threatening her with financial ruin and to kick her out of the house if she disclosed what occurred in their marriage. Vizquel, in at least one interview with Venezuelan news outlet La Patilla, denied attempting to coerce Blanca into signing this letter.
“People are scared and I was, too,” Blanca said. “I was scared for these moments for a long time. And I stayed because of that.”

In 2021, Vizquel was sued by a former bat boy of the Birmingham Barons, who said Vizquel sexually harassed him during his tenure as a coach. The suit said Vizquel "repeatedly exposed" his genitals to the bat boy, who was autistic. The suit argued that Vizquel specifically targeted the bat boy because of their disability.

Here is an excerpt from a report by James Fegan and Strang on the suit for The Athletic:

According to the complaint, the former batboy said that his supervisors and Vizquel's former coaches "laughed at the sexual harassment, further compounding the trauma and humiliation" he experienced. The lawsuit also alleges violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and states that the worker was "constructively discharged" from employment following the harassment.
Vizquel did not respond to The Athletic's request for comment.
The White Sox said in a statement: "After first learning of an alleged incident in late August 2019, the Chicago White Sox conducted an internal investigation that resulted in the termination of the organization's relationship with Omar Vizquel."

The decision to include Vizquel, given these fairly recent public reports, is eyebrow-raising from the Giants. The Giants have previously shown a willingness to not include players for post-career behavior. They did not invite former first baseman Aubrey Huff to a reunion of the 2010 World Series championship team because of his right-wing rhetoric, which while problematic, never reached the levels of domestic violence or sexual harassment. Huff was not present at Sunday afternoon's ceremony, and presumably was not invited.

Moreover, Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic reported last month that the team would not attempt to acquire any player with a domestic violence incident in their past. He added that the team also considered Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Tommy Pham's slap of Joc Pederson to be an assault, which put him in that category as well.

In all seriousness, I inquired about whether Tommy Pham would be a complete non-starter for the Giants. Was told unequivocally that they will not consider anyone with a DV incident in their past, which includes Pham. They consider the Joc slap an assault.
— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) August 1, 2023

The SF Giants did not immediately respond to an inquiry for comment by Giants Baseball Insider.