Sports
Candid Talk Valentine’s Way
He lost the mayor's race, but has an autobiography brimming with interesting anecdotes.
STAMFORD, CT — It was just 32 days ago that he lost the mayoral election in The City That Works and called out the media for “all the lousy coverage.”
CT Mirror’s election story stated that Bobby Valentine, 71 – who lost 52.54 percent to 47.46 percent to Democratic state Rep. Caroline Simmons - made “gaffes” in the closing weeks of campaign. He dismissed Simmons, 35, who is Harvard-educated, as a “girl” and “seemed dismissive of the renters who have filled the city’s new apartments.”
Less than two weeks before the balloting, The New York Times reported that Chris Russo of Sirius/XM radio was predicting victory for Valentine, who was running as an unaffiliated candidate. Mad Dog, who lives in New Canaan, called him “Mr. Stamford.”
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“I don’t like to second guess,” Valentine said when asked if there was anything his campaign could have done better.
“Maybe the last piece of getting the vote out. We probably could have had more people working on that,” he added in an interview with Patch.com.
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In 1991 The Waterbury Republican rated Bobby V as the greatest high school athlete in Connecticut history. He was recruited to succeed O.J. Simpson at USC and instead tried to replace Maury Wills as the Dodgers shortstop.
Not only that, but he had the lead in the Rippowam High School production of “The Teahouse of the August Moon.”
Valentine played in the big leagues for a decade, managed three teams, including the Mets, who he led to the World Series. He directed a championship team in Japan. Until his mayoral campaign, he spent nearly eight years in charge of the athletic program at Sacred Heart University and helped raise money for a sports complex which bears his name.
He helped revitalize Stamford’s downtown when he opened his first restaurant in 1980.
It is Saturday afternoon just three days after Simmons had been sworn in as the 32nd mayor.
At the Bobby Valentine Sports Academy in the Springdale section, he is signing copies of his autobiography – “Valentine’s Way: My Adventurous Life and Times,” (Permuted Press, 376 pages).
Even after “all the lousy coverage,” Valentine is still “a civic treasure” in the city where Jackie Robinson once lived and Andy Robustelli grew up. During the event he made donations to four local youth sports leagues.
People keep filing in with as many as five copies and a list of friends and family who would want a personalized message and autograph from “Mr. Stamford.” Many of them pose with him for a photograph.
The book discusses managing Nolan Ryan and Mike Piazza, rehabilitating from his 1973 leg injury, taking the Mets to Game 5 of the 2000 World Series against the cross-town rival Yankees and his friendship with George W. Bush when he was running the Texas Rangers.
However, there also are explicit details of physical altercations with Frank Robinson and former Angels coach Jerry Adair and the break-up of his first marriage.
Co-author Peter Golenbock, a Stamford native who now lives in Florida, declared, “He was as candid as Jim Bouton in Ball Four or Sparky Lyle in The Bronx Zoo. I was amazed at the stories that he told.”
Apparently it doesn’t help to be outspoken in a mayoral campaign, but it is of benefit when you write your memoir.
“We’re getting good reviews,” said Valentine.
…the most entertaining baseball book of the year!” — according to Baseball Almanac.
”Valentine's Way delivers an endless amount of insider material sports fans crave.,” wrote Don Laible of WIBX in Boston.
In a phone interview with Patch.com, Golenbock commented, “People who read Valentine’s Way will understand the politics of being a player and getting along with a manager and the politics of being a manager and getting along with the general manager.”
Golenbock, who according to Simon & Schuster has had eight New York Times best-sellers, did 40 hours of recorded phone interviews.
“He just called one day and asked if I wanted to collaborate,” Valentine said. “I don’t think that I have ever met him, although I probably did some years ago.”
Golenbock, who is four years older than Valentine, said he has had an interest in Valentine since first saw first saw him play as a freshman shortstop at Rippowam.
In developing the manuscript, Valentine explained, “There was a lot of stuff that I had instant memory of, and some that I had to research. I had always told people that I got my first hit off of [former Cincinnati Reds pitcher] Don Gullett, but actually I got my second him off of him.”
Golenbock said that as a manager, Valentine “was a good evaluator of talent,” placing hin in the same esteemed category as two of his previous co-authors – former Mets skipper Davey Johnson and the late Billy Martin.
“He saw the potential for Ichiro before anyone,” Golenbock said, noting that Valentine urged the Mets to sign the Japanese superstar following the 2000 season before he landed in Seattle.
Theo Epstein - the former Red Sox and Cubs executive who now works for the commissioner’s office – recently told Baseball Digest that there is a “consensus” that baseball needs “to find a way to create more frequent action, more balls in play, and more opportunities for players to show their incredible athleticism in the field.”
Valentine said, “The game wasn’t created as an action sport. The game was created as a sport to enjoy on a beautiful summer day and sit with somebody and have conversations during the game.”
But he agreed that it has become stagnant.
“Hitting it far and throwing it fast has become the dominant factor in the game,” remarked Valentine.
“If the reason that you are sitting at a game is to see how far it goes, how fast it goes, then that beauty of the game has been taken away,” he commented. “You’re not talking about what could have happened, or what should have happened. What the manager could have done, might have done. All the plays that they called small-ball are actually part of baseball. And the people who have made decisions about the game for the last 20 years have taken that part of baseball out of baseball.”
He continued, “Hence, it is boring. There is nothing to do. There is nothing for a father and son to talk about other than how far it goes and how fast it goes. For me that is boring, also.”
The Wall Street Journal has reported that, “The average MLB game in 2021 lasted a record 3 hours, 11 minutes.”
Should there be a pitch timer?
“I think it is ridiculous, because it doesn’t mean anything” commented Valentine. “It’s eyewash. It’s not the problem. If you have hitters hitting a lot of home runs and pitchers striking people out, it’s still going to be boring, just less boring.”
Will the current MLB lockout be disruptive?
Said Valentine, “I don’t think there will be major implications. When you start this early” then spring training should start on schedule.
“But somebody needs to look into the crystal ball,” he explained. “I think the owners should be concerned about their revenue. I don’t think that these cable packages are going to be around long as they transition into the streaming packages and other revenue sources that supplement it. They need to fill up the stadiums again. They haven’t been able to do that for two years.”
In reporting about Buck Showalter possibly being the next Mets manager, MLB.com stated that,” There’s also a perception around the industry that Showalter might bristle at the front-office influence permeating nearly every dugout these days.”
That perception of greater front-office influence is correct?
Valentine explained, “For years you would skip over a couple of layers to get to the manager. You would go from the owner to the manager. It used to be that the general manager’s work was over at the beginning of the season, because he had put the team together. Now they are out there giving reports on the health of the team, giving reports on the future of the team, and making decisions on who should be on the team.”
WFAN radio weekend host Richard Neer has said the better teams are relying more on depth.
For example, MLB,com has reported that the Rays, the only American League team in 2021 to win 100 games, used 61 players over the course of the season.
Valentine said he attributes that to more sophisticated analytics.
“Part of it is about resting and getting to peak levels to perform,” he explained.
Will the National League adopt the designated hitter?
“Most players who get to the majors have had a designated hitter in Little League, high school or college,” he remarked. “I think it is inevitable.”
Should the major league rosters be further expanded with the greater reliance on relief pitching?
Valentine noted that in Japan there is a 28-man roster in which three of the players are placed on the non-active list for each game.
“That’s what they need to do,” he said.
What about his future?
Will he return to Sacred Heart, where he took a leave of absence earlier this year for the mayoral campaign?
“No, I did my time at that. I’m good in these six, seven, eight-year stints,” said Valentine, who arrived on campus in 2013.
Television? He was a color commentator on the ESPN Sunday night game a decade ago when he took the Red Sox job.
“I don’t think I’ll do a lot of broadcasting,” he said.
“Baseball is still knocking on my door,” said Valentine. “I might do something there.”
Does he want to be a manager again? Perhaps a bench coach?
Valentine said he doesn’t see himself taking a position where he would be traveling with a team.
“I might want to try something else in baseball that is in my skill sets,” he commented.
However even though Valentine has long maintained that “sleep is overrated,” he acknowledged that he won’t have time to audition again for the lead in “The Teahouse of the August Moon.”
Research:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/nyregion/mayor-stamford-connecticut-valentine-simmons.html
https://www.mlb.com/news/featu...
Baseball Digest, November-December, 2021
