As Valentine grew frustrated over the north face sale inability of his pitchers to follow his instructions, Satoru Komiyama, a veteran who had played for Valentine when he managed the Mets, came forward to offer an explanation.
“We will be happy to do it in games,” he told Valentine. “But in practice we don’t want to injure our teammates by throwing the ball at their behinds.”
It was not the first problem with translation that Valentine encountered in Japan, nor would it be his last. But he would eventually learn 2,042 kanji characters out of an instructional book, practicing them in the dirt with the toe of his cleats during practice, and by the time he made his tearful goodbye speech to the team’s fans in 2009, he did so in Japanese.
“There’s a lot of guys who go over there just looking to get a paycheck,” said the current Mets manager Terry Collins, who managed the Orix Buffaloes for two seasons in Japan winter coats north face and competed there against Valentine. “Bobby completely embraced everything about it and had the mind-set to succeed there. I wish I had listened to him more.”
When the Boston Red Sox began courting Valentine in early November to replace Terry Francona as their next manager, he was cited for his baseball brilliance. Valentine is indeed smart and observant, but so are some other people in major league dugouts.
What sets Valentine apart from his peers, what makes his selection as Boston’s new manager so intriguing, is his curiosity. And maybe his daring. And those traits are probably best exemplified by his willingness to not just manage in Japan, but to plunge headfirst into its culture, both accepting and challenging it all at once.
“There is no question that he is more worldly than other managers,” said Steve Phillips, who was Valentine’s former boss with the Mets, went to the World Series with him and now accepts responsibility for the friction in their relationship.
“It’s not even close,” Phillips added of Valentine’s one-of-a-kind approach. “His enthusiasm for new concepts, new ideas is unparalleled, and he wants them to succeed.”
Valentine became an adored figure in Japan, which will not be an easy feat to duplicate in Boston, where the baseball culture is intense and entrenched, where the current roster contains a lot of veteran players, not all of whom may want to do things any differently.
But that is unlikely to deter Valentine, or inhibit him. He took on Japan. Why not Beantown?
“I think he’ll be great in Boston,” said winter coats north face John Blake, a longtime Texas Rangers executive who was with Valentine when he managed that team and who has also worked for the Red Sox.
“Bobby brings incredible passion and energy,” Blake said. “In Boston, the Red Sox are such a religion. He will revel in that and the fans will pick up on it.”
The Red Sox will go into winter coats north face training trying to shake off their historic collapse in September. It is a talented team with leftover issues — including players consuming beer and chicken during games — and Valentine will have plenty to deal with right from the start.
As was the case in Japan. Having already managed the Marines in Japan’s Pacific League for one year in 2011 North Face Women's Redpoint Optimus Jacket White, Valentine knew what would greet him when he arrived there for his second stint in 2004 — a lethargic fan base, a team expecting to again finish dead last. Faced with that challenge, Valentine over the next six years transformed the club, its stadium and, to some extent, Japanese baseball.
