0.2
A year and change as a mere saloon keeper convinced Bobby Valentine he was not done with baseball. Desperate for any path back into the sport, he accepted a minor league instructional assignment with the Mets in 1981 and once again worked his way to the major leagues with brutal efficiency. Valentine was added to the big league club’s coaching staff for the 1983 season, alongside players he’d worked with down on the farm who were beginning to resurrect the Mets from the status of perennial punching bag.
In 1985, Tom Grieve, the Texas Rangers’ general manager and a former teammate, tapped Valentine to be the team’s new skipper. Under Valentine’s stewardship the moribund franchise experienced a rare brush with contention, finishing second in the American League West in 1986, the team’s best showing ever. But no matter where the Rangers were in the standings in any given season, the spotlight would always focus on Valentine. Exactly how Valentine wanted it, said his detractors, a vocal and growing group.
Valentine refused to keep still in the dugout, shifting from one bad leg to the other, pacing, shaking his head, throwing up his hands. He even bit his nails with theatrical flourish. He would often position himself on the dugout railing and stay there for innings on end to berate opponents and umpires, thus earning himself the unflattering nickname Top Step. He once screamed at Royals pitcher Joe Beckwith so mercilessly that the unnerved righty lobbed several wild pitches.[i] Beckwith’s skipper, Dick Howser, was a famously patient soul who once weathered an entire season as Yankees manager under withering public criticism from George Steinbrenner without so much as a peep in protest.[ii] But Valentine’s antics were too much for him. The man who’d shown the forbearance of Job in the Bronx gave his pitchers leave to throw at Valentine’s head.[iii]
Valentine was more popular with his own team, but not by much. The Rangers’ ace Kevin Brown grumbled that when Valentine’s players went through slumps the manager simply shut them out, fearing their woeful performances could infect others.[iv] He could have benefited with some friends in the press but showed zero ability to cultivate such alliances and even less interest. Simple queries from the beat writers provoked answers that ranged from dismissive to outright combative, delivered in a voice that came from the back of the throat, guttural, mocking.
Such sins could have been excused if Valentine’s teams succeeded on the field, but the Rangers’ runner-up finish in 1986 proved his high watermark. These Rangers had no shortage of talent with players such as Brown, slugger Juan Gonzalez, catcher Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, and the ageless Nolan Ryan. That such pieces failed to gel into a winning combination was deemed the manager’s fault, and he’d accrued precious few allies who would argue otherwise on his behalf. Valentine got the axe in July 1992 with the bad news delivered at a dour press conference led by Rangers team president George W. Bush.[v]
Valentine returned to the Mets’ organization and was managing their triple-A affiliate when he received an offer befitting his restless spirit and boundless ego: Become the first manager recruited directly from America to lead a team in the Japanese major leagues (Nippon Professional Baseball, or NPB). NPB had employed a handful of American-born managers in its history but most of these had transitioned from playing in the league and none had lasted long in their posts.[vi] The offer came from the Chiba Lotte Marines, a down-on-its-luck franchise willing to try anything to win or at least gain some attention. Compared to its American counterpart, NPB had very strict notions when it came to training and decorum, areas not thought to be Valentine’s strong suits. The cultural differences and the Marines’ lowly status made the match rife with the possibility of doom. Valentine jumped at the challenge.
That challenge came at an especially unhappy time for Japan. In 1995 the nation was sucker punched by a devastating earthquake in Kobe and deadly sarin attacks in the Tokyo subway system, all while the economy remained in the doldrums it had settled into at the beginning of the decade. Looking for any ray of sunshine, Japan fixated on Hideo Nomo and his historic stateside “rookie” campaign. After chafing under NPB’s restrictive contracts and rigorous training demands, the star pitcher for the Kinetsu Buffaloes “retired” from the league so he could sign with the Dodgers, making him the first Japanese-born major leaguer in almost 30 years. Nomo’s unorthodox delivery baffled hitters and made him an immediate sensation on both sides of the Pacific. His American success became a source of great pride to a baseball-mad nation starved for any bit of good news, his every start documented religiously by the Japanese media.
This turn of events terrified the Japanese baseball establishment. Nomo had figured out a way to beat the system and somehow became an even bigger star in his native land by doing so. Even worse, Nomo-Mania inspired more than a few MLB teams to ship scouts overseas in hopes of finding the next Japanese superstar. Though Valentine was new to Japanese baseball himself, he quickly became the go-to quote for American reporters and scouts hoping to make sense of it all. “The top 20 pitchers here are all major league standard or above,” Valentine told The New York Times. While he cautioned Japanese hitters would probably need some time to acquire the power expected from the typical MLB player,[vii] he also believed a young outfielder named Ichiro Suzuki might be able to make the leap to America.[viii] He made these bold pronouncements when he had been on the job all of three months.
This assumption of expertise by the newcomer grated on his new bosses. Team officials who’d sought out Valentine for the position suddenly set about undermining their new manager at every turn. During spring training Valentine relied heavily on his interpreter and head coach to tutor him on NPB’s players and the leagues folkways. Both men were dismissed by management three games into the regular season with little explanation. Marines general manager Tatsuro Hirooka ordered him to read up on “the book” of NPB players and their stats. Said book was only available in Japanese, a language Valentine could not yet speak or read fluently. Hirooka told him to study harder. Valentine was promised the autonomy to both make roster moves and fire coaches but soon found out he had neither. He was given a verbal contract for three years, then was handed a paper contract for two.
Valentine being Valentine, he saw this treatment not as a reason to show more deference but to exercise more defiance. Tradition in Japanese baseball demands that players subject themselves to arduous practice schedules that would terrify most American players. Valentine challenged these ideas by cutting down on rigorous individual drills and emphasizing team fielding and batting practice instead. This lack of discipline was blamed when the Marines struggled well into the season. But once his team began to win, fans became energized for the first time in ages. Valentine piloted the Marines to a second-place finish and their best record in 11 years. In the process he transformed himself from an outsider into a fan favorite.
And yet, rumors of Valentine’s imminent dismissal swirled as soon as the season ended. The official line from the Marines’ front office pointed to irreconcilable differences on the subject of training. General manager Hirooka contended the Marines finished in second despite Valentine, not because of him, while an assistant GM said Valentine “was judged deficient in baseball ability.” Grateful for what Valentine had done for the team, fans gathered 24,000 signatures for a petition demanding his return. He was fired anyway.[ix]
Valentine returned to the Mets’ minor league system for a third time, convinced this was a temporary setback. He was still Mr. Baseball as far as he could see. It was only a matter of time before the Mets would see it that way too.
[i] Peter Golenbock, Amazin’: The Miraculous History of New York’s Most Beloved Team (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002), 561.
[ii] Robert McG. Thomas, Jr., “Dick Howser Dies at 51; Ex-Manager of Royals,” New York Times, June 18, 1987, http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/18/obituaries/dick-howser-dies-at-51-ex-manager-of-royals.html.
[iii] Peter Golenbock, Amazin’: The Miraculous History of New York’s Most Beloved Team (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002), 561.
[iv] Jack Curry, “Spring Training 1999: Valentine, Grinning and Grimacing in the Glare of the Spotlight,” New York Times, February 15, 1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/15/sports/baseball–spring–training-1999-valentine–grinning–grimacing–glare–spotlight.html.
[v] Footage of this press conference was replayed multiple times during the 2000 NLCS, as Valentine’s Mets were on their way to a World Series berth, and Valentine’s former employer was in the home stretch of a presidential campaign.
[vi] George Vecsey, “For Bobby Valentine, A Homecoming Across the Atlantic,” New York Times, March 26, 2000, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/26/sports/sports-of-the-times-for-bobby-valentine-a-homecoming-across-the-pacific.html.
[vii] Andrew Pollack, “In a Season of Discontent, Japan Hails a Conquering Hero,” New York Times, July 11, 1995. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/11/sports/baseball-in-a-season-of-discontent-japan-hails-a-conquering-hero.html.
[viii] Charles T. Whipple, “The Conversation: Baseball Manager Bobby Valentine,” Tokyo Journal, http://renfield.net/tj/9601/converse.html.
[ix] Charles T. Whipple, “The Conversation: Baseball Manager Bobby Valentine,” Tokyo Journal, http://renfield.net/tj/9601/converse.html.