With Bobby Valentine, Something Will Happen.


It may be that the Red Sox win the next three World Series and Bobby Valentine turns out to have been an inspired choice as manager. Right now, though, I’m treating the selection with dread. One of the great pleasures of the last decade or so in Boston sports has been not having coaching controversies. Terry Francona lasted from 2004-2011, Bill Belichick has been donning a Patriots hoodie since 2000, Doc Rivers has been in place since 2004 and, hell, Claude Julien is even in his fifth season with the Bruins (an eternity for hockey coaches). All those coaches are known for playing it on the level — never too up, never too down.

But now we get the hyper-excitable Bobby Valentine, a man most famous for wearing a fake mustache and inventing the wrap. It’s really a matter of time until he says something that sets the media afire. It will happen, and it will be very annoying. (Not so much the thing that Valentine ends up saying, but everybody’s hyperventilating reaction to it. Then it’s going to be doubly annoying when, while everybody else is hyperventilating, Adrian Gonzalez pronounces the situation as God’s will.)

So if you’re feeling uneasy about Bobby V, I found this video that won’t make you feel any better. It’s Valentine goofing around with Herm Edwards on SportsCenter. It’s like they meld into the same person. You know, when you think about it, Bobby V and Herm Edwards are sort of similar: they’re both entertaining former New York coaches prone to saying controversial things. Could Valentine be baseball’s Herman Edwards? Good lord. I’m going to stop typing before I have to think about this anymore.