Bobby Valentine
Episode 397
14 SEP 2026
He was a first round draft pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers and went on to play ten years and well over 600 games with five different Major League Baseball teams before then going on to 16 years as a manager for three different MLB teams, including taking the New York Mets to the World Series in 2000. He also spent time as a broadcaster with both ESPN and SportsNet New York and even authored a memoir that came out a few years ago. He has been inducted into a number of Halls of Fame — including by the New York Mets a few months ago — and was even the first American manager to win Japan’s championship series. He established a sports academy bearing his name in Stamford, Connecticut, has served as an advisor to the general manager of the Los Angeles Angels, spent eight years as Executive Director of Athletics at Sacred Heart University, and even has his own restaurant and sports bar.
Notable guest quotes:
“I kept my faith from the time I was a young man through now that I’m an old man.”
“I just always thought that leadership revolved around knowing the difference between right and wrong, and making sure that when you saw wrong, it was told to people and when you saw right it was also amplified in the clubhouse.”
“I always lived by the motto that the greatest right that a person has is the right to change their mind. And I wanted everyone around me to also understand that our belief was evolving.”
“A baseball season and a championship year is kind of like religion; you don’t really know if you’re right until it’s all over… you have to believe and you have to get those who believe what you believe to be out there preaching your gospel.”
“I think if anything about my life says what I did, I was resilient. I adjusted and adapted and made sure that if I was going down the right street that I brought as many people with me as possible. And if I made a wrong turn that I got out of that situation as quickly as possible. And hopefully didn’t drag anyone down the wrong road with me.”
“When you have team sports, one of the greatest needs that you have is to get a group of guys who can enjoy other people’s successes so that when they’re not going as well as they’d like to and might be in a little slump, they can still have some enjoyment of their day’s work by appreciating the success of others. And I think great teams are built around people who appreciate other people’s success.”
“The reason you do things isn’t for the award.”
“Baseball was part of a big part of my life. It kind of defined me, but I really wish that it hadn’t… it’s really only part of what I’ve accomplished so far in my life.”
“When you’re in a big league dugout, your main focus is winning and making sure that there’s value added to the ownership and the fans’ investment in the team. At a university level, you’re not thinking about winning the game, you’re thinking about winning the four years that those student athletes are on campus. And the way that they win is by progressing through into their adult life.”
“The lessons that you learn through sports are a lot more valuable than the record that your team has at the end of the year.”
“A local priest would stop by and bring the Eucharist and find a place that guys could gather from both teams. We’d always invite the other team.”
Related links:
Bobby’s book “Valentine’s Way”