The John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State held a live uStream forum called “A Conversation About Covering Controversy.” The panel included Jeremy Schapp from ESPN; Sara Ganim of the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., who broke the initial story; Mark Viera of The New York Times; Christine Brennan of USA Today; Jerry Micco, assistant managing editor/sports at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; and moderator Malcolm Moran, director of the Curley Center.
Four days after celebrating his 24th birthday, Bobby Valentine’s promising professional baseball career was crippled when he ran into an outfield fence, shattering his right leg.
He spent the next five months in a cast, healing a broken bone that was set wrong. He rehabbed in the Dominican Republic, playing winter ball for Tommy Lasorda. He would often trip and fall while trying to run to first. Ralph Branca, Valentine’s father-in-law, said he cried when he saw how the injury sapped his talent.
Teams of equal or lesser talent than the 2012 New York Mets (a roster still undefined at the time of this post) have backed their way into the post-season. Usually, it’s a combination of one team getting hot and another going stone cold in September. In the case of Mets, a pair of non-roster moves may prove to be the most beneficial to the team’s success in 2012: revised Citi Field dimensions and another Wild Card slot.
In the past I’ve been verbally and textually scorned for my stance on Jose Reyes — one I have held firmly since 2008 — and, to be entirely transparent on this disclosure, today I was given a tongue-lashing from my mother when I argued for Derek Jeter just as the ink drys on the final chapter of the Reyes vs. Jeter debate (for those living and reading this blog post outside the boundaries of the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area, any Mets fans submission to Yankee superiority is an act of sin).
Bobby Valentine may not be what the Boston Red Sox want in a manager, but he is what the team needs. That sentiment is one I share with the Boston media who witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly from the team during the Theo Epstein/Terry Francona era in Boston.
