The interview session started out with a casual conversation with Bruce Bochy. We had questions for the manager of the San Francisco Giants, and he had questions for the four of us — Scott Willis (The Crazy Crabbers), Julian Levine (Giants Nirvana), Steven Robles (SF Giants Rumors) and myself.

Bochy asked stuff like: do you need a license to blog? Do you make any money? Then he dropped the line of the afternoon:

“My wife started one,” Bochy said. “It’s called ‘FireBruceBochy.com.’ I couldn’t believe it was her that started that.”

Then Bochy let us in on a secret: he and Brian Sabean aren’t exactly IT professionals.

“I don’t go online a lot. I get a lot of my work online. The iPad and it’s pretty amazing what my IT department can do for us, get our scouting reports and everything. But I don’t do a lot of work on my computer. More than my general manager though, I’ll say that. Sabez, rarely does he ever go on.”

Most of our questions, not surprisingly, were for Sabean. I think we did a decent job of asking questions that other media folks might not (including a question Willis asked about defensive metrics), and he was forthcoming and honest in his responses.

A few things that surprised me:

1. How high both Sabean and Bochy seemed on Brandon Crawford.

2. Sabean might not be online much, but he’s a big fan of Bloomberg’s data analysis.

3. “People forget that Wilson crashed and burned and couldn’t finish the season,” Sabean said in explaining why they were so aggressive in re-signing Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez.

I was glad I had a chance to ask him what his thought process was in terms of signing the lefty relievers so early, as well as whether they considered adding a free agent shortstop like Jimmy Rollins or Rafael Furcal.

The video’s almost a half hour, but I think it was worth filming that long. Hopefully you will, too. Pardon the lighting (we had no choice in terms of seating arrangement) and crowd noise — there was a group of about 100 fans down the right field line who were cheering periodically for some sort of commercial they were filming.

Near the end was probably the most awkward moment for me. I asked Sabean what I thought was a relatively innocuous question, what Bruce Bochy brings to the table that other managers don’t. I didn’t mean it as a shot at Bochy in the slightest, more just a look into Sabean’s feelings since they seem to work pretty well together. While Sabean spoke complimentary of Bochy, I kept looking over at the Giants manager, and he was staring right through me. I don’t know if he thought I was taking a shot at him, but by the look on his face it sure seemed like it. Hopefully it doesn’t mean us blogger types are no longer welcome…

Enjoy!