Analyzing Bobby Valentine’s hiring as Terry Francona’s successor as manager of the Boston Red Sox, ESPN Boston’s Gordon Edes writes the former “is out of the Dean Wormer generation when it comes to putting up with frat-house antics”. “Demonstrative, outspoken, volatile, demanding, he is certain to bring a level of public accountability to a group of players who may have grown too comfortable,” gushes Edes, perhaps forgetting that it was under Valentine’s watch Bobby Bonilla and Rickey Henderson spent the final 3 innings of an NLCS elimination game playing cards in the clubhouse. That said, “laid back” is not a term that commonly comes to mind when discussing Valentine, whose ascension to one of the top jobs in baseball might not be met with celebration in some quarters, particularly the bucket training table of one Josh Beckett, of whom BoSox Injection’s Rick Meegan writes, “I can only imagine he’s been in the Tim Tebow praying position ever since Bobby V’s name came up in the managerial search.”
Beckett (above) has no one but himself to blame for this predicament. He was the ring leader of the beer guzzling, fried chicken eating band of merry men. Welcome to reality Josh, your days of leading teammates down the wrong path just came to an abrupt halt. Isn’t Bobby V. exactly what Larry Lucchino was looking for? A person with a history of being volatile with his players. A manger with a take no prisoners approach. I still think Theo was behind the whole; let’s find us an inexperienced manager to fill Francona’s slot theory. It never made sense. This is a team of veterans who are headstrong and beat to their own drums. We all thought Jason Varitek had the respect from the players in the clubhouse but that wasn’t the case at all. I for one never thought Dale Sveum was the answer for this team and thankfully so did the Red Sox ownership. Yes, poor little Ben Cherington got his feelings hurt in the process, he will survive.
I realize it’s tempting to assume Valentine will arrive at spring training looking to bury Beckett and Carl Crawford at every available opportunity, but keep in mind, the former Rangers / Mets skipper has a habit of embracing (fellow) pariahs. Recall if you will, the time he misquoted Cal Ripken Jr. in an attempt to bolster Armando Benitez’ reputation.
“Clearly, the bar for basketball greatness isn’t set too high in Turkey,” scoffed USA Today’s Tom Weir upon learning Besiktas had retired Deron Williams’ #8 jersey after just 15 games with the club. Williams, who is rejoining the Newark Nets just in time for the club to make a push for Dwight Howard, averaged 21.8 points per game and 6.5 assists during his blink-and-you-missed-it tenure in Istanbul, numbers far more impressive, than say, those accumulated by Mike Piazza during his 5 games with the Florida Marlins in 1998.
OK, I’m paraphrasing a bit. But a little more than a week after Jason Whitlock called ESPN’s Mark Schwartz, “morally bankrupt” for his role in bringing the accusations against Syracuse assistant hoops coach Bernie Fine to national attention, the Worldwide Leader is facing criticism of an entirely different sort. In the view of The Daily Beast’s Allen Barra, the network didn’t do nearly enough to sound the alarm concerning Fine. “Turn on an ESPN channel today or go to its website,” argues Barra, “and you’ll find someone taking a bow for ‘breaking’ the Syracuse story. What you won’t find is anyone stepping forward to answer the question of why, for nearly eight and a half years after receiving the Bobby Davis-Laurie Fine tape, they did … nothing.”
Did it really take ESPN that long to find other samples of Laurie Fine’s voice? Could they not have sent a reporter to Syracuse or knock on her door to try to get a statement from her? Even a verbal rebuff would have given them a voice sample. Where, in fact, did ESPN get these extra voice samples, and why did it take so long?
Perhaps because until now no one at ESPN was trying?
Penn State lost a university president, a legendary head football coach, an athletic director, and a school administrator because they heard allegations of sexual abuse and did nothing to investigate or follow up. Who, I wonder, at ESPN—the network, the magazine, or the website—had knowledge of the Syracuse allegations—allegations of boys being raped—and decided not to pursue them?
Who at ESPN is the equivalent of a board of trustees who will now step in and do the right thing by firing those responsible? Because this time boys weren’t raped just because the good old boys looked the other way. This time, boys were raped because the good old boys who were supposed to be watching the good old boys looked the other way.
