After a couple of horrendous ninth inning relief appearances, Alfredo Aceves found himself waiting for Bobby Valentine to make his way to the mound in Minnesota with the game on the line.
The manager may look like he is suffering every time he goes out to the mound nowadays, but at least on the road, everyone is laughing, not booing him.
When the manager reached the mound, with his infielders around him, Valentine asked: "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
For those students of history, the line that broke up his infielders actually came out of the Casey Stengel mound-visit playbook. In all baseball, Valentine may have found his role model in old Casey.
Allegedly during one trip to the mound, the redoubtable Stengel told his pitcher: "Don't cut my throat. I may want to do that later myself."
Bobby would do well to consult the "Old Perfesser" for other comments that showed uncanny perspicacity. Stengel also noted of clubhouse dissension: "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."
In the Sox clubhouse, undecided-Bobby players now gather to play bridge with the manager. Only one is the dummy.
Valentine would also be the first to second Stengel's insights that "there's three things that can happen in a game: you can win, you can lose, or it can rain."
Valentine may have realized that his relief corps of pitchers out on the mound in late innings may be lonely and yearning some up close and personal attention.
Stengel noted of one pitcher, he "don't say much, but that don't matter much because when you out there on the mound, you got nobody to talk to."
We certainly hope Bobby does not match Casey's first season with the Mets when it comes to total wins. 'Amazing' would be a mild term.
