Klapisch: Don’t count out Bobby V

The Day the ?? Died…

How does that relate to Valentine? Only that he remains the most logical response for the Wilpon family if the Mets fail to conquer the Phillies this year. The longer Valentine has been away from Flushing, the kinder history looks upon his reign; it’s clear his firing by Steve Phillips in 2002 was driven solely by personal dislike and not by sound baseball judgment.

Phillips’ acumen largely has been discounted now that he works for ESPN and mindlessly decrees, among other things, that the Mets can’t win with Carlos Beltran. Not that Valentine is gloating or even talking about his former boss. To the contrary, Valentine has his hands full with his present-day employers, the Chibba Lotte Marines, who decided months ago to fire him after this season.

Valentine laughs when he says, “It’s a challenging situation.” All-out war is more like it. Fans loyal to Valentine are protesting, conducting daily vigils to convince Marines’ ownership to bring him back.

Valentine, however, doesn’t expect a thaw.

“I really don’t think they’re going to say, ‘We made a mistake, we were only kidding,’ ” Valentine said. “You either appreciate what I’ve done here or you don’t. And they don’t.”