NY Media: Lightning Rod Valentine Makes Rivalry Better

The reaction from New York:

Joel Sherman, Post:

The Red Sox have become the George Steinbrenner Yankees, and now they have their Billy Martin, a combustible manager as likely to throw the organization into further chaos as he is to bring championship glory. Valentine is ingenious and inflammatory, and his greatest detractors would add insincere.

But his supporters — and I fall much more into this subset — recognize Valentine is a brilliant tactician, as good an evaluator of talent as there is in the game, a maestro at deploying the strengths of a full 25-man roster, a tireless worker, an independent thinker and a competition junkie. He also is a riveting personality, a human carnival who doesn't do boring.

The Red Sox, who are pretty darn interesting, just went off the scale by employing the most polarizing figure in the game. And this hire turns the division into the new Big East. ...

The intensity of Yankees-Red Sox just went up a few degrees simply due to Valentine's history, intensity and personality. The Yankees are at Fenway April 20-22, and I already can't wait: Girardi’s simmering vanilla vs. Valentine's teeming rocky road. ...

Valentine tends to be more problematic when he works with people he does not respect (see Phillips, Steve). He likes smart, and Cherington and Lucchino are both plenty bright. Will they be bright enough to see Valentine is worth listening to on just about any issue involving a baseball team? Because Valentine is going to have strong, reason-backed opinions on everything. ...

His closest friends will tell you he is driven to win a World Series and this is his best chance. ...

He has that chance now. He takes over a talented but fractured roster. He works for a young, inexperienced GM. He comes to a baseball-loving town at a time when they are very down on their baseball team. It is a formula for greatness or disaster.

Don Burke and Joel Sherman, Post:

The white-hot Yankees-Red Sox rivalry took on an entirely new dimension last night when the Red Sox reached a verbal agreement with ex-Mets manager Bobby Valentine — who never met a spotlight he didn't try to outshine — to become the 45th manager in franchise history.

Valentine, according to a source, was flying last night from Japan, where he had participated in a charity event and made personal appearances, to Boston to sign a contract. A news conference is expected to be held [Thursday]. ...

The Red Sox had been without a manager since Sept. 30, when they parted ways with Terry Francona following a late-season collapse that saw them drop 20 of their final 27 games and blow the nine-game lead they held on Sept. 3 for the AL wild card.

David Waldstein, Times:

For more than a century, the rivalry between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox has been the stuff of legend, filled with large personalities and fiery competitors. Now add to that caldron Bobby Valentine, one of the more colorful and controversial figures in recent New York baseball history. ...

Valentine, who in six years managing the Mets taunted the Yankees and stoked a rivalry from across town, now will do so from Fenway Park. And he will do so with an expensive, talented team that many predicted would win the World Series last season before it collapsed in historic fashion.

The possibility of his managing the Red Sox was hardly considered a month ago, when the Red Sox were examining candidates who did not have Valentine’s experience or charisma. But with the team in a state of upheaval, it was decided a more seasoned and engaging personality was required. ...

[In 1997,] He took over a Mets team that had floundered for seven years and brought steady improvement, the pinnacle of which was the World Series in 2000.

His tenure was marked by success and controversy, as he weeded out players he did not think fit the team concept and feuded with General Manager Steve Phillips. Despite occasional flare-ups, Valentine became the first manager to lead the Mets to the playoffs in consecutive years, in 1999 and 2000.

The Daily News has a poll asking about Valentine's tenure in Boston. An official announcement has not been made, but "it's too early to tell" is the least popular opinion:

Mike Lupica, Daily News:

You never need much to make the Red Sox vs. the Yankees better, with the possible exception of shortening some of their games by about an hour. But you have to know the whole thing gets more interesting now with Bobby Valentine, who comes back from a trip to Japan to take the job of managing the Red Sox. A lot of things happen when it becomes official, starting here: Bobby V. gets the best team he has ever had. In this country or in Japan, where he became such a star after leaving the Mets. ...

He can be a long day, everybody knows that — HE knows that — but you don't need such a long memory to remember his best work with the Mets, not just in 2000, but the year before, when he nearly brought his team all the way back from 3-0 down in the National League Championship Series against the Braves.

It is funny how these things work out in baseball, but Valentine said something that week, when the Mets got two wins and were set up to get another until Kenny Rogers walked in the season-ending run in Atlanta in Game 6. The Mets didn't quit when they were down 3-0. Valentine wouldn't let them quit. ...

"Someday somebody's going to do it," he said one day in the Mets dugout during the Braves series of 1999.

Everybody knew what he meant, and what he meant was that someday somebody would come all the way back from 3-0 down to win a playoff series in baseball.

"Why can't it be us?" he said.