While his team continues to nosedive and rumors circulate about his future, Bobby Valentine remains combative, as evidenced this afternoon in a defiant, semi-crazed sounding segment on The Big Show.

Here’s the transcript from WEEI.com, but you need to hear it to get the full effect. (You can also download it as an MP3.)

This is the part that will get the most attention:

Ordway: Let’s get it on the table. People back here are talking an awful lot about you, ummm, I understand they make a huge deal, they change the personnel on your team dramatically, a team that is much more challenged to score runs, but you do get the impression that maybe you’ve kind of checked out. Have you checked out of this?

Valentine: What an embarrassing thing to say. You know if I was there, I’d punch you right in the mouth. Haha. How’s that sound? Sound like I checked out? What an embarrassing thing to…why would someone even, I mean, that’s something that a comic strip person would write.

The desire to punch a WEEI host isn’t necessarily an unreasonable nor unnatural one, but expressing it on the air is  not the wisest course of action. A PR-conscious ownership isn’t likely to react charitably to this interview.

Later, Ordway rats out Nick Cafardo as a reporter that wrote that Valentine was “late” for a game (arriving at 4:00 for a 7:00 game.)

Did he really? That’s really embarrassing, Nick. I’ll see him when I get out there. He could have asked me very easily.

Poor Nick. He’s been carrying Bobby V’s water the entire season, and this is how he is rewarded in the end? (He wasn’t even being judgmental in bringing up the “late” incident.)

The media sessions in Seattle tonight should be interesting, to say the least.

I’m no Bobby V guy, to be sure, but the glee with which this meltdown and the meltdown of his team is being met with is slightly nauseating to me. I may have hated the decision to hire him in the first place, but this is a man’s life we’re talking about here, and his career, and we’re seeing it end with a fiery crash. There’s nothing enjoyable about that.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

21 thoughts on “Bobby V Goes Off On Ordway, How Much Longer Can He Last?”

  1. And still not a speck of blame for anything falls on Larry Lucchino.

    (Other than Passan and Rosenthal yesterday, who just wrote the two best articles on this effing cesspool of a team all year.)

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    1. Open your eyes and ears Pimp. Lucchino’s been getting tons of blame.
      Jeff Passan is angry with Lucchino ’cause his clubhouse snitch got canned by the Prince of Darkness.
      Rosenthal is a dink.

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      1. I’m sorry, I appear to have missed all the “Lucchino’s job is on the line” and “Henry meets to evaluate Lucchino’s performance in job” news. Could you point me to it?

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  3. Loved Ordway trying to give the “people back here” are saying route.
    I give Valentine credit for demanding to know from Ordway who wrote it.
    As Bruce said, he was the wrong choice – and as someone on the main board said this year the smear campaign is starting while Valentine is still holding the job.

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  4. Bobby Valentine is doing just about anything to get himself fired. He has to be wondering what it’s going to take to accomplish this and nothing else has worked so far so he figures by threatening to punch someone on air should do it. If it doesn’t then maybe he’ll have to fondle Jenny Dell but either way Bobby will keep trying.

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  6. I want to see Bobby driving around Fenway, dragging the World Series trophy while shouting through a bullhorn what an a-hole Larry is. “I’m tired of your macho headgames!”

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  8. I found the Valentine interview to be quite good. Bobby brought passion and honesty. Now THAT is Bobby Valentine. Also found Ordway and Holley to be very appropriate in their demeanor. Didn’t think they went out of bounds with their questions at all.
    What’s so tiresome is the predictable media spin from the likes of Felger and Mazz. So so tired of the obvious personal agendas at work with those two. They’re both so unprofessional. The namecalling and personal attacks.
    So bush league.

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  9. Can we all agree that Ordway is a bloated tool? At least Valentine will be getting checks next year. Ordway will be doing ESPN stints as flashboy once his contract ends.

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  11. So let me see if I have this straight. The official flagship station of the Boston Red Sox allowed one of their on air people to ask the Manager of the Boston Red Sox if he has “checked out”. Seems to me there are more problems than just watching Bobby V implode.

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  12. Slightly nauseating, Bruce? Are you kidding? The New England Red Sox coverage is putting on a How To seminar on malignant media effects, in front of the entire country. Except for providing a treasure trove of raw material to take apart in close readings later, it should embarrass you as a media critic, as much as it does long time fans and constructive critics of the front office and team performance.
    I hope I misread your earlier discaimers that the media was not a significant cause of the team’s poor performance and general shambles. Giving the FO full credit for flawed team design and a host of other muddles, and plenty of credit to injuries and poor pitching, the media contributed interactive poison at every step of the way. We need an unrushed second look at this, starting with the conditioning narrative after the collapse that missing the playoffs, a near statistical impossibility from where we were Sept. 1, meant there had to be evil doers to blame. Bring on the snitches. The Francona smear embarrassed the entire country, and the Globe showed no self awareness whatever. We never got over the beer and chicken, which should have triggered ten minutes of coverage, followed by a change in the clubhouse drinking rule until the players earn the privilege. .
    Poor BV had just been hired when Curly haired Dan began announcing that ‘You never want to be the guy who replaces Francona. You want to be the guy who replaces the guy who replaces Francona.’ Rough translation: Hunting Season is Open. It is a predictable but sad end, although there is an awful lot of irony and nyah nyah at our franchise, media and fan base implicit in that SI cover photo. That message is at least a start.

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  13. Bafflingly, Ordway seemed to take the “I’d like to punch you in the mouth” semi-seriously, though possibly I just failed to listen to the rest of the afternoon with much attention.

    I appreciated that Valentine then went on later to fill the beat guys’ ears with some indignation.

    That said, Ordway asked the question as ramblingly and politely as possible — and Valentine took less offense to that than to the “you were late” thing. (Which Valentine didn’t frame /quite/ right, but it was near enough to hitting it out of the park that I’ll let him be.)

    I also loved that he took apart the “how does this make you feel” variety of question. Indeed, who the hell /does/ care? It’s a /bad question/ asked by people who have stopped looking for better ones.

    Anyway. I don’t much think Henry & co’ll like it, but it was kind of fun in an overly antagonistic sort of way. If I don’t think about the fact that yeah, this has not been a kind year to Valentine. Then I get glum.

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