Ed Whitson must have had some cojones to be spouting racist slurs when surrounded by probably at least six black teammates (Venable, Whitfield, Rennie Stennett, Larry Herndon, Billy North, Al Holland, Vida Blue, Willie McCovey?).

ed whitson wasn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer

Bob should write a book. I'd buy it.

There is only one way this ends.

What about the guy who runs that ####### clubhouse right there? You know, the clubhouse that has no problem?

Ed Whitson must have had some cojones to be spouting racist slurs when surrounded by probably at least six black teammates (Venable, Whitfield, Rennie Stennett, Larry Herndon, Billy North, Al Holland, Vida Blue, Willie McCovey?).

Why did Whitson have his best years in San Diego? Was it playing part of that time with Show, Dravecky and Thurmond - admitted John Birchers?

Gaelan - I submitted a book draft (actually 150 pages of polished material), but since I was not like Rose and/or Canseco admitting guilt to some horrid crime, no house wanted to publish it.

What about the guy who runs that ####### clubhouse right there? You know, the clubhouse that has no problem?

Oh man, I'd forgotten about that. That's ####### great. ####### great that is

Gaelan - I submitted a book draft (actually 150 pages of polished material), but since I was not like Rose and/or Canseco admitting guilt to some horrid crime, no house wanted to publish it.

If you've still got the draft available digitally (or even if you don't, there are options), you really ought to consider self-publishing as an e-book... I'd certainly pay a couple bucks to put it on my kindle and I highly suspect I wouldn't be the only one.

All you really need is an Amazon account and a bit of conversion work that's very simple to do - I and I'm sure plenty of others would help out with that. It wouldn't cost anything, you'd probably make a few bucks, and it really is pretty easy to do.

Ownership, even if they wanted to fire Valentine, probably couldn't do it now without looking like the inmates are in control.

You guys have it all wrong. This is what you do, you fire Valentine...AND DON'T HIRE A REPLACEMENT. Players show up, there's no manager, they ask the pitching coach who's making the line-up card, GM walks in dramaticly and says, "You jack-asses make your own line-up, and make all the ####### bullpen decisions and all the in-game decisions", then he pulls all the coachs off the field.

Then at the end of the season you replace everyone BUT AGON AND PEDROIA. And hire a real hardass, not a faux one.

Gaelan - I submitted a book draft (actually 150 pages of polished material), but since I was not like Rose and/or Canseco admitting guilt to some horrid crime, no house wanted to publish it.

Or I could help. I mostly do crime fiction and Asian lit in translation (and pr0n), however several years ago I picked up a URL for Matt Kilroy, thinking of doing classic sports works. Rosetta and Open Road Media (kinda better-funded startups) went ahead with the same thing, but the idea and budget are still there if you're interested.

Haha, andido, you translate porn? H-doujin or published stuff? Do you do it professionally?

You guys have it all wrong. This is what you do, you fire Valentine...AND DON'T HIRE A REPLACEMENT. Players show up, there's no manager, they ask the pitching coach who's making the line-up card, GM walks in dramaticly and says, "You jack-asses make your own line-up, and make all the ####### bullpen decisions and all the in-game decisions", then he pulls all the coachs off the field.

And then what do you do after they've won all their remaining games?

And then what do you do after they've won all their remaining games?

Say you knew it would work.

take the money you're saving on coaches and put it toward the roster?

Thanks for the comments, Andino and Zonk. I have a friend who runs a e-book company. Once I get fully gainfully employed I had planned to revisit my "masterpiece" and send it to him.

Trying to be "fully gainfully employed" post-cancer post-Wall Street post-recession post-55 is a pain in the A## that occupies much of my time when I am not teaching as an adjunct.

Thanks for the comments, Andino and Zonk. I have a friend who runs a e-book company. Once I get fully gainfully employed I had planned to revisit my "masterpiece" and send it to him.

Awesome. Look to read it.

Haha, andido, you translate porn? H-doujin or published stuff? Do you do it professionally?

All published stuff. My imprint for that is the old Olympia Press, so it's a ton of reissues, a few translations, usually from French (German betimes... some East Asian), and the odd new work that I commission. I have this "Doctor" who looks at strange sex practices. Life has been good since Kindle, though most of my sales are iPad/Google/direct these days. Almost no images, except for one artist "enthusiasts" really enjoy. It does some literary titles too (Olympia was the first publisher of Lolita, Naked Lunch, The Ginger Man, Sam Beckett, Henry Miller, etc., etc.) I was even able to sell over 1k copies of an original work of poetry.

Sorry for the mush, the East Asian one is something different (reprints of translated classics, usually from a propaganda arm of the Chinese government that are public domain here, but have to be cleaned up, and then a couple of originals here and there.) Those books really sell, but you have to be willing to put 'em out there and wait three years for any kind of ROI when schools get around to buying them, so it's nice to be able to put something else out every week and see immediate returns.

/I have given Cecilia Tan advice on how to handle all the SABR works they're bringing back, but I know she got a book deal for a 50 Shades-eque trilogy, so I don't know how the SABR's coming along.

Bob...for the love of God...DON'T STOP NOW!!!

+1

I'm never going to look at my early 80's baseball cards the same way again.

Bob: I enjoyed the stories, particularly the Venable one. "Venable immediately reached over the seat and tried to take Whitson's head off like a screw-top jar." LoFFl.

This thread has transitioned into golden territory with Bob Tufts' arrival.

C'mon, Bob! More stories! Spoil the book!

Wait the woman who wrote 50 shades is involved in sabr? Thats gotta be quite the contrast

Also bob, your stores made me laugh out loud and im at a bar right now!

Valentine is a #########, but this is ridiculous.

Lester had a 4.80 ERA BEFORE the 11 run outing and got knocked out after 4 innings in his previous two starts to the 11 run game, putting a lot of pressure on the pen and the rest of the rotation. Boo ####### hoo.

Gonzalez has 29 walks vs 74 K's, and that right there has lead to his pedestrian, for him and his salary and role on the team, 119 OPS+ and just so so production.

Pedroia is hitting .278 and has a sub 100 OPS+

Josh Beckett STILL can't manage to not suck in even numbered years.

The rest is just ########. If those 4 guys were doing their jobs, as they are paid to do, then the Red Sox would be in contention, and most of this would just have to wait until the team started losing to bubble up. I completely believe that Valentine makes the workplace less enjoyable to go to.....but for professional baseball players....tough luck. Do your job or shut your mouth.

Thats the way it should be. Now get off my lawn.

When Boston hired V I sent my brother a message in effect wondering "why did V do this? That clubhouse is a den of snakes.". I don't know who could win there. They desperately need to be dismantled.

Wait the woman who wrote 50 shades is involved in sabr? Thats gotta be quite the contrast

She's a noted Yankee fan and SABR member who also writes erotica.

No one's mentioned the 1940 Cleveland Indians? They're an almost perfect match to the 2012 Red Sox:
Bobby Valentine = Ossie Vitt
Steve O'Neil = Terry Francona
Adrian Gonzalez = Hal Trosky
John Lester= Mel Harder
John Henry = Alva Bradley

From Wikipedia:

After playing in the majors for 10 years, Vitt was recommended to Oakland Oaks' owner Victor Devincinzi by the Yankees' management to manage the Oaks in 1935. His style was described as both abrasive and motivational, pushing the Oaks to a third place finish.

Vitt moved on in the Yankees' organization the next year, managing their farm team in Newark. He was then hired by the Cleveland Indians in 1938 to replace Steve O'Neil as manager and instill new life into their team.

Vitt's role in the 1940 Cleveland Indians team known as the "Cleveland Crybabies" has become a baseball legend. "I don't want any lazy players on my club," said Vitt when he was hired. "If the boys won't hustle, out they go." Vitt's players felt they were being accused. In Vitt's first two seasons in Cleveland, the Indians finished third. Yet, there were frequent clashes between Vitt and his players, and the discontent festered.

On June 11, 1940, matters came to a head when he went to the mound to remove Mel Harder. "When are you going to start earning your salary?" asked Vitt of Harder, who had won at least 15 games for eight consecutive seasons, including two 20-win seasons. The team revolted, and many players signed a petition to have Vitt removed. After the incident with Harder, a dozen Indians met with owner Alva Bradley to state their grievances against Vitt, whom they described as a "wild man." They made it clear they hoped he would be fired. In the closed door meeting between Indians players and owner, Harder told Bradley: "We think we have a good chance to win the pennant, but we'll never win it with Vitt as manager. If we can get rid of him, we can win. We feel sure about that." Bradley sought to keep the controversy quiet, but the story quickly got out, and newspaper headlines all over the nation referred gleefully to the Indians as the "Cleveland Crybabies."

Despite the hullabaloo and ridicule, the Indians, with Vitt hanging on to his job, battled the Detroit Tigers for the pennant to the last day of the 1940 season. Through June, the Indians were 42–25. After June, with the "Crybabies" harangue clanging in the papers and from the stands, they went 47–40, not a collapse, but not good enough to stay ahead of the Tigers who won the pennant by a single game over the Tribe.

The "Crybabies" story had more staying power, but the best example of a mutiny was when the 1952 Browns forced Rogers Hornsby out in less than two months. Not only were they able to get owner Bill Veeck to fire Hornsby, but after the firing they presented a smiling Veeck with a trophy that was labeled "TO BILL VEECK / FOR THE GREATEST PLAY SINCE THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION"

this isn't vitt or rapp or guys like this

valentine, as i listed many moons ago and others have agreed, is charlie dressen. and this is charlie dressen circa 1960.

the braves 1960 look better because they finished second but it was a weak league that year and this year's red sox are underperforming relative to their run differential

both teams struggled on pitching with the braves issues being hidden a bit by home park while boston's issues exacerbated by the home park

but dressen and several key braves players didn't connect. eddie mathews couldn't stand dressen. warren spahn couldn't stand dressen. and then after the 1960 season the braves traded billy bruton for frank bolling on dressen's say so and charlie being charlie couldn't resist dismissing bruton talking about how a guy named al spangler would fill in for bruton like it was nothing. yeah, that went over well.

it being a bit different time the braves players coped a bit better in terms of performance but it was pretty clear the team had become populated by guys playing for themselves. the only guy who seemed happy was joe adcock which makes sense because adcock was a bit of a jackass in his own right and under dressen got to play every day.

dressen was a solid manager.....when he wasn't talking. the problem was that he talked all the time mostly about how great he was and how the players kept letting him down

I thought of the '40 Indians as well in all this, but the '52 Browns aren't a bad parallel, either. Although one seriously doubts Bobby V is doing to his pitchers what Hornsby did to his.

#38 While I understand the sentiment, I have little doubt that the Montreal Canadians regretted the Patrick Roy Mario Tremblay situation for year to come. (In brief Patric Roy was having a tough night in goal and Mario Tremblay -- who had been brought in specifically to be a hard-ass -- left him in to give up 9 goals. Didn't help at all that their relationship had been rocky before then. The Canadians felt forced to trade Roy and Roy's new team would win the Stanley Cup twice with him in goal)

I mean what is the real up-side in leaving the guy who should be your ace for years to come in a game when he has nothing?

#66 Don't quite agree. The way I see it you move any of the players if you get your price. Really good players are hard to get and they're crucial to building a winning team.

Trying to be "fully gainfully employed" post-cancer post-Wall Street post-recession post-55 is a pain in the A## that occupies much of my time when I am not teaching as an adjunct.

I had to look for a job several years ago after being "downsized" and it was tough finding a new one just being post-55. I can only imagine the difficulty involved once a prospective employer learns that one has had (and survived) cancer. All I can say is hang in there, and yes, I nearly spit Diet Dr. Pepper all over my keyboard laughing at the Whitson/Whitfield/Venable story. Isn't Ed Whitson the pitcher who challenged Billy Martin to a fight when both were with the Yankees?

Plus it is good to see that Andy is back.

Interesting comments on Dressen, Harveys. I hadn't heard before that the Bruton - Bolling trade was instigated by Dressen. The Braves had a big hole at second base and a few young outfielders they hoped one or more of would step up. It seemed like a normal baseball trade.

Those Braves were a model of underachievement, and it's interesting to speculate on how much the managers were responsible. They should have won the pennant in '59 and '60. Maybe '61 too, although I think the Dodgers were better than them by then (though they didn't win either).

Just wanted to chime in to thank Bob for sharing and to encourage him to publish that e-book. Good stuff.

I'd by the e-book too Bob.

dressen was a big fan of bolling and was pushing for the team to make a deal. when mchale came to him saying the tigers wanted bruton dressen supported. to be clear charlie was pushing to get bolling not looking to push bruton out the door. but dressen clearly thought he could cover for bruton's loss

bruton was really popular in milwaukee.

what killed milwaukee was trading joey jay and juan pizarro for roy mcmillan

This is how I know part of this is that the media loves to pile on Bobby V. How is this one on Bobby V? Crawford wants to play. Management can't make him have surgery. Even if Bobby was the one to make the 4 on/1 off schedule, Crawford wanted no part of it.

Valentine was told not to play Crawford more than 4 days in a row by 'upper management' and the medical staff. He then promptly ignored that directive and played Crawford in 6 straight games. This is absolutely a negative mark against Valentine. And who cares if Crawford wanted to play, it's the manager's decision to rest someone as they are coming back from an injury, not the player's.

Isn't Ed Whitson the pitcher who challenged Billy Martin to a fight when both were with the Yankees?

More than challenged him, he was the one who broke Billy's arm.

#38 While I understand the sentiment, I have little doubt that the Montreal Canadians regretted the Patrick Roy Mario Tremblay situation for year to come. (In brief Patric Roy was having a tough night in goal and Mario Tremblay -- who had been brought in specifically to be a hard-ass -- left him in to give up 9 goals. Didn't help at all that their relationship had been rocky before then. The Canadians felt forced to trade Roy and Roy's new team would win the Stanley Cup twice with him in goal)

Dude, for years to come? The CanadiEns still regret Le Trade. They're probably going to until they find the new Quebecois superstar (of which they had an unbroken line of for 50 years) and win a Cup.

Roy was a temperamental superstar, but had carried the Canadiens (who had never really gotten over choosing a schmuck named Irving Grundman whose specialty was promotions to be GM over Scotty Bowman when Sam Pollock retired) to two Cups in seven years. As you note, he hadn't liked Tremblay ever since Tremblay criticized him as an analyst and when Jacques Demers was fired for Tremblay, people predicted fireworks.

The X factor in all this was the team's CEO, Ron Corey, a nice guy who had two huge flaws: he took himself too seriously and he took the team too seriously. He basically thought everybody who wore the holy CH should be like Jean Beliveau, who for the non-hockey fans here combines Joe DiMaggio's panache with Stan Musial's nobody ever has a bad word to say about him dignity. He's a saint in Quebec.

So Roy has his stinker, Tremblay hangs him out to dry, and it gets heated and Roy says to Corey, who is sitting behind the bench, I'll never play for this team again and stomps off.

According to Roy, he had cooled off by the next morning and wanted to talk to Tremblay (who had also cooled off) and smooth things over but Corey was insistent that Roy must go.

To top it all off, the Canadiens had hired a totally inexperienced ex-player, Rejean Houle, as GM. He proceeded to make a horrible trade: Roy and the team's captain, Mike Keane (a gritty third liner with lots of heart), for two softies from Europe and a 20 year old goalie from Montreal who pretty much crapped his pants at the pressure (Thibault wasn't a bad goalie, but it was pretty much the definition of an impossible situation). It ripped the heart out of the team, the Habs missed the playoffs for the first time since 1970, and the Canadiens are still trying to make sense of it all 16 years later.

To bring this back to baseball, I don't think anybody in baseball is as important to a team as a goalie, especially one with Roy's resume. But I wouldn't put it past Lucky to be as bullheaded as Ron Corey was.

Valentine was told not to play Crawford more than 4 days in a row by 'upper management' and the medical staff. He then promptly ignored that directive and played Crawford in 6 straight games. This is absolutely a negative mark against Valentine. And who cares if Crawford wanted to play, it's the manager's decision to rest someone as they are coming back from an injury, not the player's.

It's not just the manager's decision - it's the manager's responsibility. The manager needs to figure out which guys need to be motivated and which need to be reined in. Crawford clearly needs to be reined in. He has said repeatedly, and I think sincerely, that he feels a lot of responsibility to live up to his contract. Where he's struggled, it's probably been because he's been pressing. There's almost always a chance to rest the guy against a lefty once every 5 days, anyway, so do it.

I'll buy a copy of Bob's e-book. I hope the BTF "pre-orders" are enough to motivate you.

It's not just the manager's decision - it's the manager's responsibility. The manager needs to figure out which guys need to be motivated and which need to be reined in. Crawford clearly needs to be reined in. He has said repeatedly, and I think sincerely, that he feels a lot of responsibility to live up to his contract.

So, what's the overall plan? Keep him on a leash for the rest of his contract? If he needs surgery to be able to play at 100%, and until he gets that surgery, he is on restriction, then why is he not getting this surgery? What better time than now to have a surgery? An abundance of outfielders on the roster and the offseason around the corner. The overall stupid situation was created by people who aren't Bobby V. Granted, Bobby is handling this poorly.

Time for a manager who can handle big egos. Call in Cito Gaston if he is willing to step out of retirement. He dealt with a rebelling clubhouse in Toronto back in 1989, and briefly cleaned things up for awhile when he came back as manager a few years ago. Always felt if you have a team that should be winning that isn't he would be ideal to call in.

Just a shame there isn't someone like Billy Martin around anymore - players probably ran for the hills each time he was hired.

I mean...I'm pretty sure Earl Weaver is still alive.

Dressen gets a lot of crap from Jim Brosnan in Pennant Race. Joey Jay, who won 21 games for the 1961 Reds, is a key figure in the book, and talks a lot about what an ass he thinks Dressen is. Every time the Reds play Milwaukee, Brosnan writes about Dressen, and notes a couple of times how players on Braves' opponents enjoy beating him.

I seem to recall Dressen getting a more sympathetic treatment from Roger Kahn in Boys of Summer, but not necessarily one that concluded he was the best man for the job.

So, what's the overall plan? Keep him on a leash for the rest of his contract? If he needs surgery to be able to play at 100%, and until he gets that surgery, he is on restriction, then why is he not getting this surgery? What better time than now to have a surgery? An abundance of outfielders on the roster and the offseason around the corner. The overall stupid situation was created by people who aren't Bobby V. Granted, Bobby is handling this poorly.

Apparently the plan was to take it easy on Crawford as he acclimated himself to playing again and ensure the swelling went down. Like it or not it fits with the rest of the injured position players the Sox have had - get them back sooner rather than later and have them play at less than 100%. The fact that Bobby ignored the plan is absolutely ####### ridiculous.

everybody enjoyed beating dressen for the simple reason that he never shut up about how he was smarter than the next guy. ever.

charlie was a smart baseball man. but better suited as a coach versus player. a coach you can tell to shut up or fire a lot easier than a manager.