New Book By David Ortiz Will Make You Hate Bobby Valentine Even More Than You Do Now (Which Should Still Be A Lot, Even Though He's Been Gone For Nearly Five Years)

From Papi: My Story, by David Ortiz with Michael Holley (to be published May 16, 2017):

Everyone I knew was unimpressed with Valentine, the new manager of the Red Sox. He was hired in late November 2011, and the negative reaction from my baseball friends was instant. There were the sarcastic "good luck" messages. There were ominous warnings to get ready. Some even suggested that, at 36 years old, I probably wanted to retire rather than play for someone like him. ...

I did some research and learned that there was basically one person in the organization, team president Larry Lucchino, who really wanted to hire Valentine. That was it. One person. Still, I had to perform regardless of who was managing. How bad could Bobby V really be?

The drama began almost immediately in spring training. I remember fighting the thought, very early, We're going to have an absolutely terrible year.

It was all about him in the spring. It was as if he wanted to prove how smart he was by running us through all these drills he'd used while managing in Japan, drills we had never done before. Bobby was in his own bubble, and I just wanted to get him out of it and tell him, "F--- you." ...

The bigger issue was how he expected players who had been in the big leagues a long time to immediately do things his way without any missteps. There had been a lot of conversations about our team the year before and how our lack of accountability led to our September collapse. Maybe Bobby was told to come in and boss around full-grown men. Maybe the Red Sox wanted to hire a daddy, not a manager. ...

I was competitive enough to think that we could win a bunch of games despite Bobby's ego. It didn't take long for me to realize I'd been too optimistic. And when I say not long, I mean the first series of the season. We opened in Detroit and were swept by the Tigers. It was impossible to ignore the comments from my teammates about Bobby's managing, how he made decisions that didn't make sense and how generally clueless and distant he was. The next stop on our trip was Toronto. On the flight there, I experienced a first in my career.

Bobby's seat was in the middle of the plane, and the players were in the back. That day I was near the front of our section. I remember looking up and seeing a line of my teammates walking toward me. They were pissed. They said, "We want that mother------ fired before the airplane lands."

Valentine relates his side of the story here. (Spoiler: He comes off as an asshole.) It's disgusting to hear the two announcers falling over themselves to kiss his ass.

I am curious to see Nick Cafardo's reaction, since he pushed for Valentine to be hired even before BV was considered a viable candidate and believes to this day that hiring Valentine was the correct and smart move. ... Also: SoSH discussion and the Cafardo thread.