The Case for Bobby V [fake watches]
The Red Sox' offseason has been a turbulent one, as befits a team that committed one of the worst regular season collapses in baseball history. (Nearly as bad as...well, never mind.) Their curiously torturous managerial search is the latest example. You'd think there'd be no shortage of candidates for one of the game's most high profile (and most high paying) jobs, and yet somehow the hunt has dragged on longer than the Orioles' quest for a GM. The team's rumored top pick, the immortal Dale Sveum, joined old boss Theo Epstein in Chicago, thus throwing things into further chaos and hysteria.
The latest wrinkle has Boston GM Ben Cherington interviewing Bobby Valentine. Whether Valentine had always been a candidate or is only now being considered out of desperation is unclear. The truth is further muddied by rumors that Red Sox ownership has already made up its mind about hiring Valentine and is simply giving Cherington a thin but face-saving illusion of choice in the matter.
All of these Machiavellian schemes have overshadowed the fact that Valentine may finally have a major league job again, something he has seemingly craved since he was kicked to the curb by the Mets after the disastrous 2002 season. My own thoroughly informal polling of BoSox fans reveals virtually no enthusiasm for this possibility. At best, there is a sense of resignation or acceptance. Most have varying shades of objection, from "I'm not sure about this guy" to "HELL NO."
As an unapologetic fan of Mr. Valentine, I am here to assuage the fears of Red Sox Nation. I'm of the opinion that much of his negative reputation is just as much narrative as it is reality. He is not a man without faults, but I sincerely hope you get to embrace them.
Star-divide
Bobby Valentine's last stateside gig is usually recalled for its turbulence. A USA Today article on his Red Sox candidacy takes all of three sentences to describe him as "confrontational" and say he "rubbed some of his players the wrong way." It's important to remember that he was just one element of a chaotic period in Mets history (though most periods of Mets history are marked by some chaos or another).
When Valentine took over the Mets late in the 1996 season, they were still trying to recover from The Worst Team Money Could By years, and from the flaming wreckage that was Generation K. Less than a year after he took the job, Steve Phillips ascended to the GM seat. His damn-the-torpedoes approach to roster construction wasn't so much team building as it was a very expensive game of Jenga, and it imbued the Mets with a win-now-or-else attitude that would define them (mostly for the worse) for the next decade. Oh, and ownership was feuding with itself, as Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday sniped at each other and struggled to determine the team's direction.
And yet somehow, Valentine is the one who gets the lion's share of the "craziness" of this era. Steve Phillips is probably more responsible than anyone else for the mess the Mets became post-2000. His serial zipper issues are the clear mark of a not-very-good human being, as far as I'm concerned, and far worse than anything Valentine has every done. Despite all this, Valentine remains much less welcome in Queens than Phillips. Just this past year, when SNY produced a special about Ralph Kiner, Phillips was one of many ex-Mets interviewed for the event; Valentine was nowhere to be seen.
The only conclusion I can come to is the differences in how each man handled the press. Phillips played them like a fiddle. He was legendary for the treatment he lavished on writers, from creature comforts to juicy gossip. Valentine? Not so much.
Bobby Valentine was behind the eight ball with the press in New York even before he started. He had a rep from his years in Texas as being combative with reporters, umpires, and opposing players--an entirely deserved rep, to be fair. His tendency to squawk from the highest perch of the dugout earned him the nickname Top Step, which was not meant to be a compliment. He had little collateral or good will on which to draw when he arrived in New York, and he quickly spent most of it with his preternatural ability to aggravate those who covered the Mets.
He'd been a baseball lifer, and yet the fact that Valentine managed a year in Japan (a successful but doomed campaign where he was constantly undermined by the front office) struck some as elitist, effete. His predecessor, Dallas Green, was considered an uncompromising straight shooter. In comparison, Valentine was seen as slick and sophisticated, in the worst sense of the word.
The latest wrinkle has Boston GM Ben Cherington interviewing Bobby Valentine. Whether Valentine had always been a candidate or is only now being considered out of desperation is unclear. The truth is further muddied by rumors that Red Sox ownership has already made up its mind about hiring Valentine and is simply giving Cherington a thin but face-saving illusion of choice in the matter.
All of these Machiavellian schemes have overshadowed the fact that Valentine may finally have a major league job again, something he has seemingly craved since he was kicked to the curb by the Mets after the disastrous 2002 season. My own thoroughly informal polling of BoSox fans reveals virtually no enthusiasm for this possibility. At best, there is a sense of resignation or acceptance. Most have varying shades of objection, from "I'm not sure about this guy" to "HELL NO."
As an unapologetic fan of Mr. Valentine, I am here to assuage the fears of Red Sox Nation. I'm of the opinion that much of his negative reputation is just as much narrative as it is reality. He is not a man without faults, but I sincerely hope you get to embrace them.
Star-divide
Bobby Valentine's last stateside gig is usually recalled for its turbulence. A USA Today article on his Red Sox candidacy takes all of three sentences to describe him as "confrontational" and say he "rubbed some of his players the wrong way." It's important to remember that he was just one element of a chaotic period in Mets history (though most periods of Mets history are marked by some chaos or another).
When Valentine took over the Mets late in the 1996 season, they were still trying to recover from The Worst Team Money Could By years, and from the flaming wreckage that was Generation K. Less than a year after he took the job, Steve Phillips ascended to the GM seat. His damn-the-torpedoes approach to roster construction wasn't so much team building as it was a very expensive game of Jenga, and it imbued the Mets with a win-now-or-else attitude that would define them (mostly for the worse) for the next decade. Oh, and ownership was feuding with itself, as Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday sniped at each other and struggled to determine the team's direction.
And yet somehow, Valentine is the one who gets the lion's share of the "craziness" of this era. Steve Phillips is probably more responsible than anyone else for the mess the Mets became post-2000. His serial zipper issues are the clear mark of a not-very-good human being, as far as I'm concerned, and far worse than anything Valentine has every done. Despite all this, Valentine remains much less welcome in Queens than Phillips. Just this past year, when SNY produced a special about Ralph Kiner, Phillips was one of many ex-Mets interviewed for the event; Valentine was nowhere to be seen.
The only conclusion I can come to is the differences in how each man handled the press. Phillips played them like a fiddle. He was legendary for the treatment he lavished on writers, from creature comforts to juicy gossip. Valentine? Not so much.
Bobby Valentine was behind the eight ball with the press in New York even before he started. He had a rep from his years in Texas as being combative with reporters, umpires, and opposing players--an entirely deserved rep, to be fair. His tendency to squawk from the highest perch of the dugout earned him the nickname Top Step, which was not meant to be a compliment. He had little collateral or good will on which to draw when he arrived in New York, and he quickly spent most of it with his preternatural ability to aggravate those who covered the Mets.
He'd been a baseball lifer, and yet the fact that Valentine managed a year in Japan (a successful but doomed campaign where he was constantly undermined by the front office) struck some as elitist, effete. His predecessor, Dallas Green, was considered an uncompromising straight shooter. In comparison, Valentine was seen as slick and sophisticated, in the worst sense of the word.
2011-11-23 11:24
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