Valentine mixes it up in the Yankees-Sox rivalry
Posted by: Chad Jennings - Posted in Misc on Feb 28, 2012 
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I’ve been saving the quotes out of Boston camp for the end of the day. You might not like Bobby Valentine, but you have to admit, he brings a certain something to this rivalry. Here’s the AP story about his comments today, questioning the Flip Play and poking fun at the A-Rod/Varitek fight.
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Bobby Valentine has only been wearing a Boston Red Sox uniform for about two weeks and he’s already taking a few jabs at the archrival New York Yankees.
Many thought that the outspoken manager’s arrival in Boston could add even more spice to one of the most heated rivalries in professional sports, and it hasn’t taken long for that to hold true.
In one fell swoop on Tuesday, Valentine said Derek Jeter didn’t need to make the flip-to-home relay that stands as one of the most celebrated plays in Yankees lore and fondly recalled when retired Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek “beat up Alex” Rodriguez in 2004.
The Red Sox were working on relay throws at spring training on Tuesday and Valentine was asked about one of the most famous relay plays in all of baseball in Game 3 of the 2001 ALDS between the Yankees and Athletics.
Down 2-0 in the series and with a 1-0 lead in the seventh inning, Yankees right fielder Shane Spencer missed the cutoff man on a double by Terrence Long. That’s when Derek Jeter seemingly came out of nowhere to grab the overthrow in foul territory near the first baseline and flipped the ball home to get Jeremy Giambi at the plate.
The Yankees hung on in the game, and rallied to win the series.
“We’ll never practice that,” Valentine said. “And I think (Jeter) was out of position and I think the ball gets (Giambi) out if he doesn’t touch it, personally.”
Most observers credit Jeter’s hustle and instincts with turning around the series in the Yankees’ favor. And several Yankees have said that Jeter would practice that play in spring training, which drew a scoff from Valentine.
“That was amazing that he was there,” Valentine said. “Then it was more amazing to say they practiced it. I don’t believe it.”
But Valentine wasn’t finished there.
Even though he is just starting to put his finger prints on the organization, Valentine was asked to comment on Varitek’s 15 seasons in Boston and what he meant to the organization. Like many others, Valentine used Varitek’s confrontation with Rodriguez in a July 2004 game to sum up his mentality and his demeanor.
Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo drew Rodriguez’s ire when he plunked A-Rod in the game. After Rodriguez started cursing at Arroyo, Varitek came to his pitcher’s defense by shoving his catcher’s mitt into the third baseman’s face, sparking the benches to clear. The Sox came back and won the game 11-10 and went on to win the World Series that season.
Valentine was nowhere near Fenway Park that day, but that didn’t stop him from giving the decision to Varitek.
“He is a man’s man,” Valentine said of Varitek. “He was a big hitter when needed. He was a leader of the pitching staff. He was able to beat up Alex. All that stuff is good stuff. He was exactly what he was supposed to be.”
The rivalry will be renewed when the two teams meet in spring training on March 13. Their first series of the regular season will begin April 20 at Fenway.
Seriously, Valentine is just trolling. I’m not sure why anyone cares to feed him.
Valentine = moron. If Beckett and Bucholtz get hurt and the Sox are down by 8 games at the ASB, think they’ll fire him?
I’m just happy I don’t have to listen to him on Sunday Night Baseball anymore.
I can’t even trouble to read it. I’d find him embarrassing, were I a Red Sox fan.
Bobby Valentine
“Guys, guys, I made fun of the Yankees again. That’s funny, right? Right? You like me! You really like me!”
And we have the Rex Ryan of baseball…
Booring! (pun intended)
I wonder if his players even respect him. Guy is the worst self promoter.
Any idea when the two B’s will pitch? Want to make sure I’m home.
Not afraid to say this out loud – Yankees-Red Sox has become one of the most tedious stories in sports.
And Valentine is like the Wizard of Oz – whether or not you think he’s wonderful or not, you can see behind his curtain, pulling the levers and pushing the knobs.
His brand of brilliant is loud and noisy but utterly transparent.
Anyone else follow Darren Rovell on twitter? WTF is wrong with this guy?
So LGY, just for fun?
Do you try to make a run at D12?
And if so, what’s your proposal?
Yes Bobby deserves the V salute with my index and middle fingers……but I have to fight the urge to withdraw the index finger!
bobby v will finish the year. firing him mid- season would mean lucchino and henry made a mistake in hiring him, and they won’t do that. but, at this pace, he will be sacked midway thru the following season.
they will then go after farrell for 2014. that’s my prediction.
Good luck with your SS’s this year Bobby….Nick Punto would have made the flip Im sure….
“PeteAbraham wrote:
27Yankees27:
First off, cool that you your SAT score in your name. Secondly, you can’t curse in posts on Boston.com.
Meanwhile, just a little hint: Going on another team’s blog and defending A-Rod is probably about as weak as it comes. If you wanted to defend Jeter or Mo or even somebody like Cano, that would be OK. But A-Rod? Have some self-respect.”
By the way, I know dozens of Yankees fans. Nobody likes Alex. But, hey, to each his own. Maybe he’ll sign that copy of Details you carry around someday.”
I liked this reply
“Pancake wrote:
Big time fixation on Alex Rodriguez. Did A-Rod snub you when you covered the Yankees for LoHud? Is that all Bobby V has to do to impress you? Say something snarky about A-Rod and he then has you eating out of his hand? Talk about being played! How easily you are manipulated.”
http://www.boston.com/sports/b.....rentPage=0
Haha what a dimwit Pete is.
Pete A and Bobby V a marriage made in a dump known as Fenway.
Stuckey
I’d probably get whiplash from this team restructuring once again but I think you kind of have to make a run at Dwight. I think he’s the second best player in the league behind LeBron.
Obviously prefer to build the trade around Amare but would sacrifice Melo and Chandler if I had to.
Wow, a jab on a play from over ten years ago. An entire class of fifth graders just went, “Huh?”
Wow,
Would you want Richardson back in a Melo swap, or would you be willing to give any two of the Big 3 just for Howard?
Would you be willing to take back Turkoglu?
Stuckey
Melo-Chandler for D12-Turk
stuckey February 28th, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Not afraid to say this out loud – Yankees-Red Sox has become one of the most tedious stories in sports.
___________
For once I agree with you, Stuckey.
Stuckey
What would you offer?
Good job 27Yankees27.
You are my hero.
Bobby big mouth and the season hasn’t started yet.
Even Sox fans have to be doing a collective facepalm after today. 15 seasons as an MLB manager and lifetime he’s 45 games over .500
Please don’t change a hair for us Bobby.
“Obviously prefer to build the trade around Amare but would sacrifice Melo and Chandler if I had to.”
Amare is likely untradeable. His contract is uninsured and he is either injured or in decline.
Do the Knicks have the stones to include Lin, if necessary? I certainly would, but I would suspect that they lack them.
Chandler-Stat-choice of Shump/Fields for D12/Anderson/Turk (haven’t done the cap math) would be the dream scenario.
But if Smith called and said Melo/Chandler for Howard/Turk, I guess I gotta say yes.
Btw -from a week or so ago, 50% was for Stat turning it around THIS year.
I’m a little more bullish for next year.
Dolan is Chairmen of a media company that includes the Knicks.
He isn’t giving up Lin.
And not for a lack of stones, but for recognizing he may have a winning lottery ticket.
“Man’s Man”?
Varitek started a fight with his catchers mask on!
Nothing remotely “manly” about that.
“Varitek started a fight with his catchers mask on!”
It was gutless, but that’s how the RS roll.
Bobby big mouth and the season hasn’t started yet.
——————————————————–
Bobby is a punk. Certainly is the opposite of Francona.
Dwight wants nothing to do with the Knicks though. They have every right to make a run but…
Bobby V cracks me up. He’s a knucklehead. He gets something out of his players whereever he goes only for them to eventually tune him out. I think he will wear out his welcome much quicker up there with the attitudes he has on that team such as Beckett. All these comments don’t mean much being there for 5 minutes other than showing he is already completely fixated on the Yankees. He should be, he was second rate on the Mets while he was here. And as far as comments on V Tek’s greatness or these other guys, try actually managing the guy before feeling like you should be the voice of the Sox for a franchise guy up there.
WoW. @LoHudKnicks: AWESOME! @landryfields singing, @I_Am_Iman rapping at #Knicks subscriber event tonight: http://t.co/FWKtYobj (via @pauleeNYK)
“Dwight wants nothing to do with the Knicks though”
How do you know that?
“Dwight wants nothing to do with the Knicks though. They have every right to make a run but…”
He seemingly want to be THE first option on a championship caliber team in a big market where he’s the media star.
Such a thing might not exist.
I’m dubious on this apparent jonze for the Nets, but if he’s really been sold on the concept, the Nets have done a stellar sales job.
I do find this interesting. He is a big, playful media-friendly personality. He might have had that over Melo and Stat and certainly over Deron Williams.
But unexpectedly that dynamic has changed. Depending on how the next couple of months go, being the new media darling in NYC may not longer be an option for him.
I wonder if that will ultimately be a x-factor.
Rich in NJ February 28th, 2012 at 11:13 pm
“Dwight wants nothing to do with the Knicks though”
How do you know that?
—————————-
He’s hell bent on playing for the Nets as weird as that sounds.
“He’s hell bent on playing for the Nets as weird as that sounds.”
I have heard that he changes his mind from day to day, including staying in Orlando.
I suspect that he doesn’t think the Knicks are a realistic option, but would love to play at MSG.
True he would love to play in the Garden. It is the Mecca of basketball
And if I’m Orlando, I demand Lin in any deal because he’s cheap and has upside.
Valentine is just trying to endear himself to Red Sox Nation by saying what they want to hear. We as Yankee fans need to also put our persoanl feeling aside and give credit where credit is due. Take Varitek for example, he did a great job advising his starters – do you honestly think Jorge Posada would have known what kind of beer goes with fried chicken.
Bobby V is a schmuck!
I realize NBA trades are vastly different animals than MLB trades, but I don’t think Orlando is giving up Anderson in any Dwight deal that takes back those pieces. He is their 2nd best player.
Howard PER is 24, Turkoglu 12, anderson 22.7 vs stat 16.3, fields 13.3, chandler 19.5 shump 10.2
Magic are losing on a PER basis, and they are giving up a superstar.
***********BREAKING NEWS***********
I have received full payment from Bret the Hitman in the form of cash money to settle the debt he incurred when he lost a wager to me.
Better late than never. Thank you, Bret the Hitman.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9.....hotostream
Yeah, Anderson is very good in his own right.
If Orlando felt compelled to trade him they’d do it separately from Dwight.
Yeah that’s my hand writing.
handwriting
Would the Magic take Melo + Chandler for Dwight Howard? Doesn’t seem like enough young talent.
Good evening,
Bret or Nick,
What was the bet all about? if i may ask
I don’t know much about basketball, but wasn’t Melo the star of the NY Knicks??
The bet I lost stated the Yankees would sign Carl Crawford.
Kobe has a broken nose and a concussion? It’s kind of messed up for that to happen in a stupid AS game.
“Would the Magic take Melo + Chandler for Dwight Howard? Doesn’t seem like enough young talent.”
The deadline is approaching. The market for Howard is limited because he can basically choose his next long-term team.
Magic aren’t going to get equal value, and it’ll be what they can get from the few places Howard will stay.
Bret,
oops! sorry man
If I’m the Magic I’d rather have Brooke Lopez, Marshon Brooks and a couple number 1 draft picks.
Lopez is soft.
So is Carmelo.
Melo isn’t a center or a PF. He’s a scorer.
Daily Jesus link…
(with audio!)
http://tinyurl.com/6tsh8qg
Pass. GN.
This is how the lineage was supposed to be:
“Most catchers don’t hit but they control the game, they know how to catch,” Montero said on Tuesday in the Mariners clubhouse. “Sometimes you have to give something away so you can catch or you can hit. But if you can do all that together you can be amazing like (Jorge) Posada, you know?”
(Listen to Montero talk about his desire to prove his doubters wrong)
Montero draws inspiration from Posada, his former Yankees teammate who retired this offseason after 17 years in New York. Posada was never known as a great defensive catcher, but he was good enough to log 1,574 games there for the Yankees, more than 86 percent of his starts.
“If I see a big example in front of my face, it was Posada,” he said. “I want to be like him. We were together a lot. He taught me a lot.”
CompassRosy February 29th, 2012 at 12:36 am
Daily Jesus link…
(with audio!)
http://tinyurl.com/6tsh8qg
///
TY Rosy.
You b a s t a r d s
The only business Jesus Montero has wearing catching gear is if he’s trick-or-treating.
Buck debunks Bobby V:
Orioles manager Buck Showalter, who was with Jeter in his early years, said that indeed was a play Jeter had practiced.
“That was a play we practiced in spring training,” Showalter told Tom Van Riper of Forbes Magazine in an interview last year. “Derek was maybe 19 or 20 — he was just a pup. We practiced that on a back field. It was taught. The reason Derek had to flip the ball was that he was actually a little bit late getting there.”
http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/.....erek-jeter
Oops. Debunks him in advance. Bobby V is behind the curve. Buck’s comments came in an interview given last year. Guess Bobby V doesn’t read Forbes.
One of the espn offers suggested that it might irritate Girardi (achieving its purpose), but if Bibby V keeps lipping off I think the Yankees are going to want to shut him up.
This is actually a good thing. It’s been too buddy-buddy in recent years.
Let’s just agree that Bobby V is bunk.
Montero draws inspiration from Posada, his former Yankees teammate who retired this offseason after 17 years in New York. Posada was never known as a great defensive catcher, but he was good enough to log 1,574 games there for the Yankees, more than 86 percent of his starts.
“If I see a big example in front of my face, it was Posada,” he said. “I want to be like him. We were together a lot. He taught me a lot.”
J. Alfred Prufrock-
i hadn’t though of it before, but i remember many on the blog being very anti posada the past few years. hose of us who supported posada all the way through his career right through last year’s playoffs seem to be the ones who hated seeing cashman trade montero the most.
those who didn’t like posada and were disrespectful now towards montero seem to be the same people. on a reflective note , the difference in opinion might be that people value catcher offense differently.
i will simply the yankees have been at their best when they have had good hitting catchers. yogi, howard, blanchard, munson, posada. further back dickey.
the reaction against the monteo trade may be a backlash against going against a long standing yankee tradition.
bobby valentine?
i watched him on a meet the fans thing the red sxo did a month or so ago with questions from the audience. what i saw was someone who isn’t really natural with people . he has this phony rah rah thing going that is a throw back to the times he grew up in. i know all about this because i grew up in the same area at the same time.
there is not a lot of depth to the guy. he knows as the teams are now, the yankees will kick his team’s butt, so he’s trying to stir the pot hoping to change the dynamics. it’s a losers weal attempt to provoke to try to take the yankees off their game.
jeter will laugh at him and set the tine other yankees will follow.
expect valentine to drill jeter and alex every chance he gets.
you can see where he’s going already.
valantine is a loser.
Amare, Landry Fields and draft picks for Dwight Howard
Lin
Shump
Melo
Howard
Chandler
Happy Leap Day LoHudders.
spidanyc February 29th, 2012 at 8:26 am
Amare, Landry Fields and draft picks for Dwight Howard
Lin
Shump
Melo
Howard
Chandler
———————————–
You have to take back Turk.
What happens if you’re born on Feb 29th?
Baseball prospectus projects the 2012 Yankees to be 95-67.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/
what i like about the yankees this year :
players:
cano, jeter, swisher, granderson , gardner, and teixeira
pitchers:
cc, mariano, robertson, hughes, joba, and the depth in general of the staff
i also like that at a time when strong teams are being weakened by the system the yankees have been weakened less than other strong teams.
they really should be able to make the play offs easily as long as they stay healthy.
…and healthiness has improved from a few years ago when it seemed like hamstrings and groin pulls happened was a risk when someone sneezed. the yankees seem to have improved their conditioning.
forgot nova
Bronx Jeers February 29th, 2012 at 8:48 am
What happens if you’re born on Feb 29th?
————————————————————————————————————————-
If you were born 29 Feb 1990, you’d be 3 years old and not old enough to drink.
***1990***
1988, you’s be 5 years old
CC definitely off the capt crunch so far.
Tuesday workout
http://t.co/bR7pqXfp
Bronx Jeers- my mom works with a girl who has a Leap Year birthday. She’s my age, but technically, she’s seven today.
New Post: One last full day of workouts
My friend was born on Leap Day. He had a hard time getting a passport because the computer system that was used didn’t recognize/wouldn’t allow February 29th o be entered into it.
that baseball prospectus projection has the yankees 4 games ahead of anyone else in baseball.
that’s what i’m saying.
the team is strong.
i actually thing this time when the yankees are strong relative to their competition allows them to be careful and patient how they work in younger players over the next two years.
Valentine is a buffoon that’s lucky he has a job after not managing in MLB for 10 years.
Valentine was the Mets’ manager when Timo Perez was caught loafing around the bases by Jeter in game 1 of the 2000 WS. For all of Valentine’s big talk, nobody loafed on Joe Torre, whereas the Mets loafed with impunity under Valentine. Jeter showed Valentine up for the phony he is with that play and by busting it on the basepaths himself to score a run in that same game — not to mention he was WS MVP. Bottom line — Valentine has Pinstripe You-know-what Envy.