Bobby Valentine was abandoned and needlessly vilified during the Red Sox’ disastrous 2012 season, the infamous ex-manager says in a new documentary.
NBC 10 recently released a one-hour special about the catastrophic 2012 campaign, “The Bobby Valentine Experience,” which features interviews with multiple players and Michael Holley and John Tomase. But Valentine is the centerpiece. He spins nearly every controversy from that season — his Spring Training incident with Mike Aviles, his feud with Kevin Youkilis, acrimony on the coaching staff — into a narrative that paints him as the ultimate victim. After watching, it’s tempting to think that maybe Valentine was set up to fail. How could he succeed if John Henry got upset at him for throwing a party at Bass Pro Shop?
In Valentine’s telling, he wasn’t the antagonist behind any of the issues that season, including his embarrassingly public spat with Youkilis. Instead, he was a sacrificial lamb. Josh Beckett making him wait outside for 45 minutes on New Year’s Day was a bad omen.
It may not be true, but it’s an entertaining watch. Valentine truly comes across as someone who has no regrets, besides maybe taking the job in the first place.
Though nearly every incident recounted in the special is public knowledge, it’s likely you’ve forgotten about some of them. Remember Larry Lucchino’s midseason letter to season ticket holders, in which he gushed over the “friendly Cody Ross?” Or how about the fact that only four players showed up to Johnny Pesky’s funeral?
The sheer number of calamities they packed into six months is impressive.
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Valentine says he was instantly shunned when he showed up to Spring Training, with players more concerned with personal feuds than listening to their new manager. The pitchers thought Youkilis was the person who leaked “chicken and beer” to the press, and thus, refused to sit on the same side of the clubhouse as him. Valentine was apparently helpless.
Then he publicly questioned Youkilis’ commitment to the game, and got into a verbal altercation with his third baseman.
"I was sick and tired of it. That was as bad of a situation as you could imagine and he was totally struggling with this situation,” Valentine said. “It wasn't fun for him to be with this group and it wasn't fun for anyone else including me to have him with the group.”
Later, Valentine said the problems between Youkilis and the pitchers “didn’t go away until Youk went away” (he was traded to the White Sox in June).
According to Valentine, Youkilis’ problems with him were self-inflicted. “Maybe I handled it wrong? Hmm .. I don’t know. I don’t think I did,” Valentine said.
That quote encapsulates Valentine’s apparent attitude about the season: it wasn’t me. He says he was cut off from the front office all season, beginning when he tried to throw a feel-good party for the players at Bass Pro Shop — paying $15,000 in the process.
“It was OK, but it wasn’t that kumbaya moment where things came together,” Valentine said. “It was even met with disapproval from the front office, but John Henry had planned a night under a tent.”
Valentine’s relationship with the front office worsened when he told Ben Cherington he thought Theo Epstein was the “chicken and beer” snitch, not realizing Cherington’s close relationship with his mentor.
“I had no information flow as to what was happening,” Valentine said. “I got a lot more information from when I went out to dinner at night from waiters and bartenders than I got internally.”
Valentine saved his strongest words for Beckett, whom he paints as unprofessional and aloof (OK, maybe he's not so off on that one). During their first meeting, Valentine says Beckett told him he would retire from baseball if he only earned $5 million per year.
“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s the guy who’s pitching for me,’” Valentine recalled.
His relationship with Beckett never improved. “There was always a hole,” Valentine said. “He wasn’t going to let me in. I wasn’t important. I don’t even know if he would recognize me if I walked into his room. Josh was always in his own world.”
The coaches were apparently undermining him, too. Valentine’s bench, Tim Bogar, and bullpen coach, Gary Tuck, refused to speak with him at different points. “Like when I said, ‘Hey Gary, how are you doing?,” I don’t think I got a response,” Valentine bemoaned.
He says Lucchino would tell him he would hire his own coaches next year, and to just bear through the season. Of course, Valentine was fired immediately after the season ended.
The Red Sox went on to win the World Series under new manager John Farrell.