The Boston Red Sox announced the hiring of Bobby Valentine as their 45th manager. General manager Ben Cherington introduced Valentine as a strong voice, good communicator and passionate leader with a desire to win. In the question and answer portion, Cherington denied and notion that Valentine was not his top choice and detailed the process of meeting and selecting him.
Valentine answered questions and mostly spoke of his desire and excitement to speak with and work with the players on a range of issues. He described his interest in the job and his readiness and philosophy to get it done. He mentioned a few times, he doesn’t have any checklists. Valentine told Heidi Watney, who is nearing an end to her time as a Red Sox reporter with NESN, that his first order of business is to put together his schedule and “get to work and get to work hard”.
The 61-year-old fiery ESPN analyst was a USC football and baseball star, a MLB player and professional manager in both the U.S. and Japan before joining the world wide leader in sports. Valentine was the only big-name candidate the Red Sox interviewed during the two-month search.
Valentine, who had two managerial stints in Japan, hasn’t managed a Major League team in nine years. He managed the New York Mets to second place finishes in his first three years in New York. He will be most remembered for putting on a disguise to comeback to the dugout after being ejected in 1999 and leading his team to a World Series appearance in 2000. The Mets barely finished over .500 in 2001, but Valentine gave back more to the city with his class on and off the field in the aftermath of 9/11. Valentine was fired after a fifth place finish in 2002. Prior to taking the New York job, Valentine skippered the Texas Rangers for eight seasons. His MLB record as a manager is 581-605 over 15 seasons.
Valentine joined the ESPN broadcast team after leaving Japan for the second time in 2009. Working out of Bristol, he was not far from his home town of Stamford, CT. Since his retirement as a player in 1980, Valentine has owned and operated Bobby Valentine's Sports Gallery Cafe, where he claims to have invented the wrap in the early days of the restaurant.
Valentine is an intelligent, fanatical and ardent baseball guy from New England. He knows the game, speaks his mind to all and isn’t afraid to come down on star players, who are not working on a team goal. These traits can make him a success or a failure in Boston. One thing is for sure, he will make things interesting at the 100-year-old Fenway Park.
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