Clash Of Personalities

Exactly two months ago the Red Sox fired the best manager in team history.   Today, after an extensive search that was as mismanaged as it was baffling, the team is set to name Bobby Valentine as its new manager.  Valentine, known best as a manager for being ejected from a game while coaching the Mets and reappearing in the dugout wearing a Groucho Marx mask, is an interesting choice.  Needless to say, he will not be the quiet, player-friendly voice of Grady Little or Terry Francona.  While not displaying the dictator-like qualities of Lou Piniella, he certainly will voice his opinions.  Boston media, eat your heart out. 

Valentine after all is the man who just last season, while working as a color commentator for ESPN, called foul on the speed of Red Sox vs. Yankee games and specifically took issue with Josh Beckett.  The complaint lit up the dials on sports radio stations throughout New England and even resulted in consideration from other players and managers.  I wonder how well that will go over at the first meeting between the burly Texan and the new skipper.   Perhaps the meeting will go smoothly and perhaps Beckett will be shipped off to parts unknown before it can happen.  Either way, Valentine is sure to ruffle some feathers.  He will call players out from not running out ground balls, change lineups daily, and go on “hunches” more than statistical analysis (Carmine beware). 

My guess is that there will be times when his honestly, candor, and know-it-all attitude will please, as he is the type of know it all personality that would make a great traveling salesman.  He did have major success in his latest coaching stint in Japan, and took the Mets to the World Series in 2000.  However, he has found himself at the center of controversy several times.  He was fired by the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Japanese Pacific League in 2005 after a conflict with the general manager.  In 2000 he opened his mouth a bit too wide at a speaking engagement at the University of Pennsylvania, making backhanded comments about the Mets, his employer at the time.  Despite leading the Mets to the aforementioned World Series, his volatile relationship with General Manager Steve Phillips led to his firing in 2002.  He returned to Japan and the Marines, and despite great success and popularity, was fired due to a poor relationship with the General Manager after a brutal smear campaign against him.  He then returned stateside and has been working at ESPN ever since.

As we can see, Valentine's career follows a clear ebb and flow.  He takes a team, achieves moderate success before his personality wears his bosses thin and he is fired, usually in an ugly manner.  In a market like Boston, with a new G.M that appears to have little to no power, Valentine may very well find success.  But if the changes in Red Sox upper management have shown us anything in the past 10 years, it is that team President Larry Lucchino wields power and eats people alive.  A dispute over power led to then G.M Theo Epstein to walk away from his post in 2005.  Terry Francona was smeared on the way out of his position as manager this past June in a historically messy fashion.  If these two highly respected baseball men couldn’t deal with Lucchino, what chance does a personality like Bobby Valentine have? 

So I ask you, what happens when the  unstoppable force of Bobby’s mouth meets an immovable object like Lucchino?  I can’t tell you, but two or three years down the line, it should be fun to watch.