The Boston Red Sox announced Wednesday night that Bobby Valentine will be introduced as manager Thursday.
The team will host a news conference at 5:30 p.m. at Fenway Park to announce Valentine's hire.
Valentine, reached at his Connecticut home before Wednesday's announcement, called the Red Sox "a storied franchise."balklänningar
"Having a great baseball team with a chance of winning the ultimate title is what people dream about, and I'm one of those who dream about those things," Valentine told ESPNNewYork.com's Ian O'Connor from by phone.
The hiring comes a little over two months since the Red Sox announced on Sept. 30 that they were not exercising the two-year contract option they held on Terry Francona, who in his eight seasons as manager guided the Red Sox to two World Series titles, the one in 2004 ending an 86-year championship drought.
But Francona also presided over the collapse of the Red Sox in a 7-20 September in which they fell out of playoff contention on the final day of the regular season. No team had ever held a lead as large as the Red Sox had for a playoff spot so deep into a season -- the Sox held a nine-game advantage in the wild card on Sept. 3 -- and failed to qualify for the playoffs.bröllopsklänning
Francona said at the time he parted from the Red Sox that he felt it was "time for a new voice," but also said that he was never asked to return.
Whether the players are open to the new voice is up for debate after a clubhouse source told ESPNBoston.com last week that a team official told at least one player at the beginning of the managerial search that they "weren't going to hire Bobby Valentine or someone like that."
The conversation suggests that Valentine, known as a no-nonsense manager in stints with the Mets and Rangers during 15 years, was perceived by some as a darkhorse candidate who would not be popular with some players.
"They're going to have a mess on their hands," the source said when asked what would happen if Valentine, who at that time was just one of several candidates, was hired.
ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney had heard similar rumblings, citing sources Wednesday saying that "some Red Sox players have been upset" that Valentine had emerged as a candidate and have been "grumbling to each other, through texts and phone calls."http://www.balklanningaronline.com
Valentine declined to address reports that some Red Sox players are upset that he emerged as a leading candidate for the job.
Asked if he was surprised it took this long for him to get this close to a big league job after his firing from the Mets in 2002, Valentine told ESPNNewYork.com, "I enjoy every day of my life, so when I wake up in the morning I do the best I can. I think that's always kept me from worrying or being consumed with what I'm not doing. When I had a job, I wasn't thinking about having another job."
Valentine, who has been working as a baseball analyst for ESPN, had been kept under wraps as a candidate after new general manager Ben Cherington publicly announced his plans to choose a manager from a list of five publicly announced suitors for the job.
The Red Sox arranged for one of those candidates, Dale Sveum, to fly to Milwaukee two weeks ago to meet with members of the team's ownership group who were in town for the major league owners' meetings, and appeared to be Cherington's No. 1 choice for the job. But Sveum was not offered the job after meeting with the owners, and instead was hired by former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein to manage the Chicago Cubs.
Post je objavljen 01.12.2011. u 02:34 sati.