Nearly 30 years ago, E-40 tunes helped Gabe Kapler survive, thrive, and make the bigs

Minutes before the start of Saturday’s Giants-Reds game, Bay Area hip-hop legend E-40, whose real name is Earl Stephens Jr., casually strutted to the mound with his own music booming as he prepared to fire the ceremonial first pitch in front of a sellout crowd.

Dressed in bright orange, the Vallejo product started his windup and fired a fastball with two-seam range that bounced in front of Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford, stationed behind the plate. The pitch might not have been SportsCenter-worthy, but Oracle Park fans loved it, especially the 15,000 or so who went home with free E-40 bobbleheads as a giveaway.

Not long after, E-40 grabbed a microphone to announce the starting lineup for the Giants. The final name he announced was that of San Francisco skipper Gabe Kapler.

It was a full circle moment.

A noted music guru himself, Kapler is an admirer of the 54-year-old rapper, telling reporters before the game:

That’s cool. I’m a huge hip hop fan so his music in particular – in a major way – was like a soundtrack for my 1995 season with the Jamestown Jammers in the New York Penn League with the Detroit Tigers.”

When Detroit drafted Kapler in the 57th round in 1995, they alerted him of their plans to send him to play minor league baseball in New York. At 19 years old, Los Angeles was the only area Kapler knew so his expectations of what the New York experience would be like was based on stereotypes – Manhattan and The Big Apple sounded good to him.

Instead, he was greeted with Jamestown, a city in southwestern New York surrounded by leaves with an old town vibe. Definitely not skyscrapers or the iconic monuments he pictured:

I signed and they said ‘you know you’re gonna go play your first season in New York’ and I can only pull Manhattan out of my brain. Like, ‘oh cool, what does that look like?’ Jamestown is not the New York I pictured in my brain. Yeah, this naive 19-year-old, I guess.”

Kapler described his living situation in Jamestown as “really, really bad” and “crammed,” as five other teammates attempted to fit in a two bedroom apartment. As bad as it might’ve been, the roommates resorted to their old reliable: an E-40 record that would continuously roll throughout the summer on a loop.

With a record of 32-44, the Jammers weren’t a very good Low-A team. But Kapler fed off E-40’s breakout record, “In a Major Way,” and enjoyed a summer with four homers, 34 RBI and a .804 OPS in 63 games. Kapler was promoted the following year, becoming one of Detroit’s most coveted outfield prospects. He never laced up spikes in Jamestown again.

After his playing days, Kapler hung onto some of the lyrical messages in E-40’s songs. Here’s one from 2013:

From the fandom as a minor league player to managing in the big leagues, Kapler’s esteem for Earl Stephens is almost three decades in the making and it clearly keeps getting sweeter:

I’m so happy for Earl.”

Steven Rissotto

Steven Rissotto has covered the San Francisco Giants for SFBay since 2021. He is the host of RizzoCast, a baseball interview show featuring players, coaches, media and fans. He attends San Francisco State University and will major in Journalism and minor in education.