Nearly seven years have passed since Bobby Valentine last appeared in a Mets uniform. He has spent six of those years mostly out of sight here, managing in Japan.
Nevertheless, Valentine seems to have never left the minds of Mets’ fans.
Whenever the team stumbles and its manager finds himself in jeopardy, Valentine’s name surfaces. First as a candidate to replace Art Howe, then Willie Randolph and now Jerry Manuel.
The “Zen of Bobby V” still has a hold over the Queens faithful.
Expect to hear Valentine’s name plenty in the next two months as the Mets seem to trip and fumble their way further into irrelevance each day. Manuel received a vote of confidence from ownership two months ago, but the second-year manager cannot feel safe.
Valentine is finishing up his run as manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan. In a strange ending to the well-documented love affair between the team and Valentine, the organization informed him before the season that he would not be asked back for 2010. His $3.9 million salary has been cited for a reason, but the situation remains cloaked in mystery.
In an e-mail this week, Valentine was reluctant to speak about the Mets or any other major league managerial job. People have accused him of being a self-promoter, and he does not want to campaign for a job.
“As for next year I don’t want to cross that self-promotion line,” Valentine wrote. “I love doing what I am doing. Even the bad days are OK … Baseball has been my professional life for 42 years and I hope this is not my last.”
The 59-year-old seems to grow more popular with Mets fans the further away he gets from his time in orange and blue. In a poll on metsblog.com in June, 97 percent of 5,000 respondents said they have positive feelings toward Valentine.
What is it about Bobby V?
“I think the fans understand that I am just like them,” Valentine said. “I love the game and really care about them and the players.”
Fred Wilpon fired Valentine two days after a last-place finish in 2002. There was not much outcry from Mets fans then, but as they have suffered through the vanilla years of Howe and Randolph, the fiery Valentine has grown more appealing.
He is second on the franchise’s managerial wins list, behind Davey Johnson. But much of Valentine’s tenure here was marked with frustration as his teams consistently failed to topple the Braves. A playoff run in 1999 and the NL pennant in 2000 were the high points, but they were followed with mediocrity in 2001 and a dismal 2002.
The failures have faded, though, while the nostalgia for those years has grown. Mets fans long for the identity he gave those Mets. They could relate to the underdog from Connecticut who never seemed to back down from anyone or cared what they thought of him or his team.
Memories of tough losses at Turner Field have faded while the image of Valentine wearing glasses and a fake mustache has become more endearing in contrast to buttoned-up Randolph or dry-as-toast Howe. Manuel is closer to Valentine in personality, but the team’s wretched performance this season is making fans sour on him.
When talk radio callers and bloggers raise the possibility of a Valentine return, there is a question of whether the Mets front office could ever co-exist with him again. But all indications are Valentine maintains a good relationship with general manager Omar Minaya and the Wilpons. Jeff Wilpon sends his son to Valentine’s baseball academy in Stamford. Before hiring Randolph in 2004, Minaya and Valentine had an informal dinner, and Minaya said Valentine was an option to become manager.
Valentine’s main adversary at the time, general manager Steve Phillips, was booted from Shea Stadium eight months after Valentine.
Besides the Mets, Valentine also has been mentioned as a candidate to fill the Nationals’ managing vacancy. He confirmed he has had informal discussions with teams about roles both on and off the field, but he’s fielded no offers.
At the moment, Valentine said he is not focused on the future but concentrating on finishing his time in Chiba.
His final year there has been bizarre. The team’s president, Ryuzo Setoyama, summoned Valentine to Japan before Christmas last year and stripped him of his personnel duties. He also told Valentine that 2009 would be his final year as manager.
The Japanese press has referred to the front office “De-Valentinizing” the Marines. Many of Valentine’s allies in the front office have been forced to quit or seen their power taken away.
Valentine remains popular with the team’s fans, and more than 112,000 of them signed a petition protesting his dismissal. Ownership was unmoved, and Valentine announced two weeks ago on his blog that he will leave the team after this year.
“I have dedicated six years of my life to this challenge and have loved most of the experience,” Valentine said in the e-mail this week. “I have fallen in love with the baseball culture, studied the language every day, gained an appreciation for the players and totally been amazed by the passion and commitment of the fans.”