Valentine Getting His Walking Papers?

[Behan]

[floatl][/floatl]There is an Sports Nippon article at the Yahoo JAPAN page about Bobby Valentine leaving the Marines next year. From my poor Japanese it looks like the team is letting him go, or at least he was saying that.

http://dailynews.yahoo.co.jp/fc/sports/chiba_lotte_marines/?1220395198

[jim katta]

Yeeeep. That broken Japanese after several years of part-time study and having gained the ability to slurp ramen properly will come in handy when he tries to get a similar job back in the U.S.

NOT!

[Greji]

[floatl][/floatl]There is an Sports Nippon article at the Yahoo JAPAN page about Bobby Valentine leaving the Marines next year. From my poor Japanese it looks like the team is letting him go, or at least he was saying that.

http://dailynews.yahoo.co.jp/fc/sports/chiba_lotte_marines/?1220395198

A quick check of some other sports sheets have the consensus of articles saying that Bobby has stated he has been asked by the Shacho to resign. This could be true, or be a carrot on the stick for the team, which is sometimes done to give them a cause to come together and play harder.

However, it could just be time for him to go, he's about 58 and of course, he will say he was asked to resign, even though it might be his own decision.

[Catoneinutica]

Oh please, God, please, please make it be true. I hate that pint-sized I'll-shill-for-anything asshole. Yesterday I had to take a Keisei bus for the first time in years to go to the Chiba Drivers' License center (hey! they didn't revoke the license - my wife had the car), and there's Bobby's goddamn voice overamplified over the bus's PA system: "The next stop is the final - and BEST stop - MakuhariHONGO STATION!"

I ran into him once at Makuhari Cineplex and said, "Aay, BoBAY!" (as if I gave a shit about baseball). He smiled and said hi. Next time I see him, I'd like to say, Aay BoBAY! Ya friggin' corporate hu-ah!

[Behan]

Oh please, God, please, please make it be true. I hate that pint-sized I'll-shill-for-anything asshole. Yesterday I had to take a Keisei bus for the first time in years to go to the Chiba Drivers' License center (hey! they didn't revoke the license - my wife had the car), and there's Bobby's goddamn voice overamplified over the bus's PA system: "The next stop is the final - and BEST stop - MakuhariHONGO STATION!"

I ran into him once at Makuhari Cineplex and said, "Aay, BoBAY!" (as if I gave a shit about baseball). He smiled and said hi. Next time I see him, I'd like to say, Aay BoBAY! Ya friggin' corporate hu-ah!

I ran into him at Costco and had about a five second conversation with him as he was riding the escalator up away from the food court.

I know someone who worked out at the Gold's Gym in Makuhari and used to see him a lot working out. Not that anybody wants to know that.

[Catoneinutica]

I ran into him at Costco and had about a five second conversation with him as he was riding the escalator up away from the food court.

I know someone who worked out at the Gold's Gym in Makuhari and used to see him a lot working out. Not that anybody wants to know that.

Yeah, he used to dominate the single recumbent bike Gold's had a few years ago. A Japanese consultant I know who was also a member confided to me one time, "Bobby Valentine's arrogant!" I asked why, and the consultant said he'd wanted to strike up a conversation with Bobby one time while the two of them were in the sauna, but Bobby was too engrossed in his English-Japanese dictionary to give him the time of day.

-catone
-can't really blame Bobby; consultant is an incredible shmoozer
-quit GG because the 'roid force was very high indeed

[Behan]

My friend also told me that Bobby had a free membership because he was teaching dancing lessons or something.

[TennoChinko]

[Catoneinutica]

Sorry, man but your Jap consultant friend sounds like a real idiot. When I go to the gym,the last thing I want is to talk to anyone. I'm there to workout - not socialize. If your buddy approached me like that in the sauna, I'd assume he was either an annoying language leech or trying to make a homosexual pass.

Here someone who shares my low opinion about chatty-cathy's:

http://standingonthebox.blogspot.com/2008/04/home-away.html

The guy's one of the most annoying J-people I know. I used to wince when I saw him, because I knew that within minutes he'd be walking up with his "How you doing?" schtick. There was an exodus of members from the Makuhari GG a couple years ago, and the consultant ended up at Renaissance. We made sure to go to Central.

-catone

-his wife was one of the classic people-you-at-the-gym archetypes: the bakkushan, as the Japanese used to say. You see her from behind with her microshorts and long black hair and you think, hmm, not too sha-BAY, but then she turns around and you get a look at her face and - yikes! - she's about 60.

-another archetype at GG was the expletive-spouting-weightlifter. There was this gaijin guy who'd grunt "FUCK!" after every lift.

[prolly]

i knew him in arlington, texas, and he was an untalented douche then so i'll be glad when he ends up on the streets drinking a pint of vodka a day until he croaks.

[Bucky]

Watch out, he could be the woeful Seattle Mariners' next manager. He and Ichiro could slurp ramen together.

[Behan]

i knew him in arlington, texas, and he was an untalented douche then so i'll be glad when he ends up on the streets drinking a pint of vodka a day until he croaks.

So you are not a believer of Bobby Magic?

[Mulboyne]

[TennoChinko]

According to the "SupoNichi" sports tabloid, the Chiba Lotte Marines management wants to "deValentine" the team. Hmmm I guess that means returning to the good old days when they were a shit bottom of the barrel team whose fan base were mostly miserable old farts and bad drunks -- and, losing money hand over fist. The North Korea of Japanese professional baseball. Serves Valentine right for dealing with Koreans - the owners (Akio Shigemitsu) and the GM Ryuzo Setoyama are both of the Closet Bakachon Tribe.

[Behan]

I wonder if they will purge all likenesses of Bobby, get rid of his taped announcements on the Makuhari buses, etc.

[Greji]

I wonder if they will purge all likenesses of Bobby, get rid of his taped announcements on the Makuhari buses, etc.

This might be the classic Yaocho! Bobby's got tons and tons of fans and it could a play to get them involved, then if the team does well, the "bad ole management" guys are "forced" to bow to fan pressure and extend Bobby's contract and everybody's happy...

[Behan]

That sounds like something that Bobby would be into, Greji. It would probably work, too.
Lotte has been really popular since he came.

[Gilligan]

The above quote does seem a little strange to me. If they REALLY wanted "to go in a different direction," why wait a year to do it? If you're convinced he's not the guy to get the job done, why keep him in the position for one more season?

Of course, they may not want to pay the salaries of 2 managers at the same time, but then why say anything at all, even to Valentine? I agree with Greji, it sounds more like Valentine is trying to gain some leverage to force an extension.

[Greji]

Of course, they may not want to pay the salaries of 2 managers at the same time, but then why say anything at all, even to Valentine? I agree with Greji, it sounds more like Valentine is trying to gain some leverage to force an extension.

I think this way because if you remember, they took it up the poop chute pretty bad when Hirosawa canned Bobby last time, that following their second place finish after years in the cellar. When it came out about all the back stabbing and lying by the coaches and staff against Bobby, the fans revolted and they tried to get him right back, but he was already managing in the US. When they finished last the next year it was a done deal. As soon as Bobby became available, they almost had to call him back.

The reaction by the fans all during that time animated the team and they have played really well by at least being in contention each year since he returned.

I still think they are just trying to re-ignite the fan base. I think Bobby will be 60 next year which is the traditional retirement age, but it will be easier to continue him if they have a stand-up season and the fans can help this with a lot of support.

[Behan]

[TennoChinko]

Nothing like a successful White Man to stir up pent-up feelings of jealous rage & inadequacy in small-dicked orientals.

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Marines fans deliver petition

The Chiba Lotte Marines fans have spoken, or at least 110,000 of them have. A group of fans protesting the front office's decision to let manager Bobby Valentine go after this season, delivered a petition to the parent company in Tokyo on Monday, asking the team to stick with the skipper. The group claims to have collected around 110,000 signatures on the petition. "We cannot be satisfied with his firing," Yasunari Tanaka, the representative for The Organization to Keep Manager Bobby Valentine, was quoted in the Jiji Press as saying. "We don't think his salary, even though it's said to be 400 million yen, is high, because he has gotten results. "We will do what we can to protect Bobby." The group has been collecting signatures for two months. "I try to imagine how much time went into that," Valentine told The Daily Yomiuri. "It was a lot of work by a lot of people."

Valentine, who managed the Marines to the Japan Series championship in 2005, was informed in December by team president Ryuzo Setoyama he would not manage the club in 2010, regardless of the team's results in 2009. This is his seventh season as Marines skipper. "The support petition is a lifetime memory that I'm watching before my eyes," Valentine said. "Everything we did since I was here was tell them [the fans] that they were important. And we branded them. We branded them as part of us. Lotte was Team 26 [the Marines fan club]. "What we're known for around this country, is not me or [star shortstop Tsuyoshi] Nishioka, it's our fans. That's our brand. And they're proud of it."

[Bucky]

Phil Hersh, Frank Abbott, Pete Serino and Bobby Valentine singing a little karaoke.