NEW BOSTON Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine.
The Boston Red Sox may have already gotten what they were looking for from Bobby V.
In a move that had reverberated from Kenmore Square to the backyard of the rival New York Yankees, the Red Sox introduced Bobby Valentine as their new manager on Thursday, turning to him to lead the ballclub back to the playoffs and help Boston forget this season’s unprecedented September collapse.
“I am honored, I am humbled and I am pretty (darn) excited,” Valentine said during the news conference in a Fenway Park premium club. “It’s more than a special day. It’s the beginning of a life that’s going to extend beyond anything I thought I’d be doing. The talent level of the players we have in this organization is a gift to anyone, and I think I’m a receiver of this gift.
“I think we’re going to do this, man,” he said, smiling and turning to shake hands with general manager Ben Cherington. “And I really and truly appreciate this opportunity.”
The 61- year- old former Mets and Rangers manager agreed to a two-year deal with club options for 2014 and 2015. The news conference was attended by owner John Henry and his wife, by Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, by an entourage of friends from Stamford, Conn., by dozens of team employees and by about 100 members of the media, many of them from New York outlets that covered Valentine in his days with the Mets.
Valentine, who also guided the Chiba Lotte Marines to a 2005 championship, greeted one reporter in Japanese.
“Bobby’s a big personality,” Henry said. “I think that’s a plus.”
Valentine brings to Boston a reputation as a polarizing figure who wasn’t afraid to criticize his players publicly — something former Red Sox manager Terry Francona never did — and who bickered with his boss at the Mets. But he takes over a team with a bit of a reputation problem of its own: After going 7-20 in September and missing the playoffs by one game, the Red Sox have been hounded by reports that players drank beer and ate fried chicken in the clubhouse during games instead of sitting in the dugout to support their teammates.
“I didn’t see it first hand,” Valentine cautioned, before saying about the team what he could have said in his own defense: “Reputation is something other people think about you. Right now maybe this group of guys has a reputation that is not warranted. … I can tell you I look forward to working with this group and establishing a culture of excellence.”
Vowing to get to know the players personally first, Valentine said there was no single way to restore discipline to a clubhouse.
“ I don’t have a Ten Commandments of Baseball that I’m going to recite to them,” he said.
Valentine took the Mets to the 2000 World Series, where they lost to the Yankees.
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