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Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.

Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.

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Valentine's Eve

by on 11 February 2012 6:37 am

Monday night, nine o’clock, MLB Network: Bobby Valentine, former Mets manager, joins Bob Costas on Studio 42. His erstwhile identity may be incidental to why he’s on — I hear he has a new gig — but a couple of clips (here and here) indicate his lively 1996-2002 tenure in the blue, orange, black and white will come up in conversation.

What better way to spend the night before Valentine’s Day?

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6 comments to Valentine’s Eve

  • Florida Met Fan Rich
    February 11th, 2012 at 10:31 am

    Thanks for the reminder. I am looking forward to that. It should be interesting to see how he does with the Red Sox as I don’t think they helped themselves that much over the winter.

    From what I can see I think the Rays are going to give them a run for the wild card with all their pitching.

    Can’t wait to see them and the Yankees in their first series. I bet he looks funny in red.

  • Danny
    February 12th, 2012 at 12:08 pm

    I ask this is all seriousness: why does anyone like this guy?

    As a manager, his record hovers unimpressively around .500 with exactly zero championships and division titles. For all his supposed baseball smarts, I seem to remember him getting his ass handed to him in nearly every match up against Bobby Cox. If he couldn’t double-switch, his imagination seemed to be at an end. The decisions he made that cost game could fill a book.

    He is by all accounts a supreme egoist. The most dangerous place in the world is between him and a camera, and his meager achievements do not come close to matching his talk. He played favorites with the players and fought constantly with ownership.

    Frankly, the only things I find in any way laudable about him happened when he went to Japan. In addition to fighting with the management there, he at least learned the language and customs (more than most transplants are willing to do) and finally won something.

    I see so many otherwise sane Mets fans in love with this guy that I’m starting to doubt my own sanity. He’s a media-hound, mediocre manager. Why is he so well liked?

    • Kevin From Flushing
      February 13th, 2012 at 1:12 pm

      Take a good hard look at the underwhelming Mets squad he took to the World Series in 2000. Bobby was great at getting the absolute most from his guys.

      It also says something to me that when Matt Franco and Benny Agbayani couldn’t cut it in the majors any longer, they followed Bobby to Japan. When you can lead guys across continents, you’re doing something right.

      • Danny
        February 13th, 2012 at 3:47 pm

        Best at getting the most and loyalty out of his favorites, perhaps, but not the most from everyone on the team. One could also argue it was less about loyalty and more about keeping a paycheck coming. The stigma of playing in NPB had long since been removed for extending careers.

        He’s a .500 manager and an all-talk pony.

  • Greg Prince
    February 13th, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    And he certainly inspires passion!

    The division title paucity is a Chassism. In the age of Wild Cards, at least until the Wild Card proves materially less valuable in a new playoff format, Valentine not winning the N.L. East while making the postseason two years in a row strikes me as irrelevant. I think it’s also unfair to ignore the spark he gave the Mets (and Texas) in his early years at the helm(s). He might not wear well, and perhaps his personality is up for grabs, but the Mets were better off with him than they were before he got here and after he left.

  • Dave
    February 13th, 2012 at 6:39 pm

    With you, Danny. Man is a narcissist who thinks he’s bigger than the team and the game itself. Opponents hated him so much that they gave extra effort to beat him, and while there may be something admirable about that, it seemed to work for folks like Chipper Jones quite nicely.

    Agbayani and Franco went with him because no one else would give them jobs. And for every one of them, there was a Hundley, a Harnisch or a Lance Johnson who wouldn’t play for him again for all the money in th world