Speaking on tonight’s episode of Costas Tonight (10 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network), Bobby Valentine is dishing out the blame for the fall of the 2012 Red Sox, starting with himself but that moving right along to none other than Big Papi:
David Ortiz came back after spending about six weeks on the disabled list and we thought it was only going to be a week. He got two hits the first two times up, drove in a couple runs; we were off to the races. Then he realized that this trade meant that we’re not going to run this race and we’re not even going to finish the race properly and he decided not to play anymore. I think at that time it was all downhill from there.
Downhill from there? Because things were going so well for a 60-66 team before Ortiz went back on the disabled list?
Ortiz, who was playing with an Achilles’ tendon known to be less than 100 percent, pretty clearly hurt himself running out a double in his one game back on Aug. 24. It’s possible he was just trying to buy more time for Ben Roethlisberger, but if so, he’s a pretty good actor.
Valentine also has something to say about the coaches he accused of stabbing him in the back, hearkening back to some tips he got from former Cowboys coach Tom Landry back when he was starting out with the Rangers:
He grabbed his hat and said, ‘I have some professional advice.’ And I said, ‘Please, Coach, anything.’ He said, ‘Make sure your coaches speak your language.’ Here I am a grey-haired guy and 25 years of managing later, I should have heeded that advice and made sure that the coaches were going to be the guys that were my guys. You know what coaches are? They’re your communication line. Your attitude filters down to the players through the coaches and their attitudes, their questions, their kinds of stress filters up through the coaches. I think we had some snags, the lines weren’t flowing the way they should have.
There’s a whole lot more where this comes from in an interview airing tonight on Costas Tonight at 10 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network.
