NYBD: Silva: Bobby Valentine, Executive Producer, But What’s Next?

Wrappin’ with Bobby V…

When I asked him if the new “Moneyball” front office, which demands too much vertical “command and control” from the top-down, is an impediment to his reentry into baseball, he reminded me that he was practicing “Moneyball” twenty-five years ago. “In 1986 I had a sabermetrician on my staff (Craig Wright), and he was there through the time I was fired,” Valentine reminded me. “For people to think the whole world has changed because a movie came out or because a book was written is not the case at all. Everything’s remained the same.”

...If not in the big league dugout wouldn’t he be the perfect individual to be the next commissioner of baseball? You hear names like Joe Torre and George W. Bush, but what man would be more hands on than Valentine? Who knows more about baseball than Valentine? He’s managed on two continents and just helped produce a film about the fastest growing population in the game today. He wasn’t afraid to tell the Japanese baseball hierarchy how broken their game was, even though to do so in that culture is heresy. His zeal to make a difference in the Far East instead of just managing a baseball team probably hastened his departure.