TOKYO — One day into this baseball century, Bobby Valentine is at odds with another National League manager. This time, it’s Don Baylor of the Cubs.
Baylor accused Valentine of gamesmanship aimed at rattling Cubs closer Rick Aguilera and the Mets’ manager called Baylor “unprofessional.”
The source of the overseas incident was the protest Valentine lodged with two outs in the ninth inning of a 5-3 Cubs victory over the Mets on Opening Day. The reason for that was Baylor’s erroneous lineup card.
Here’s what happened: Baylor put Jeff Huson into the game as a defensive replacement to start the bottom of the ninth inning. Valentine visited home plate umpire Randy Marsh to tell him there were 25 names on the Cubs’ lineup card and Huson’s was not among them. Valentine said Marsh told him that Jose Molina was not supposed to be on the lineup card because he was not on the Cubs’ roster.
Valentine informed Mets GM Steve Phillips of that. Phillips then checked the Cubs’ official roster posted with the league office and later in the inning, informed Valentine that both Molina and Huson were on the 25-man roster. Valentine said he protested the game at that point, fearing the Cubs had 26 men on their roster. It wasn’t until later, Valentine said, that he noticed the source of Baylor’s erroneous lineup card. Baylor mistakenly had written Jeff Reed’s name twice among reserves. It was at that point, Valentine said, the protest was dropped.
“Bobby tried to distract the pitcher … which is probably the right thing to do,” Baylor said of Valentine’s two visits with Marsh in the ninth. “You just have to understand Bobby and I try to understand him …”
The “but” was left unsaid.
Informed Baylor was “upset” by the delay in ninth-inning action, Valentine grew hot.
“Too bad,” he said. “He was upset that he made a mistake or he was upset that I was trying to do my job? What exactly was he upset about?”
Told of Baylor’s gamesmanship accusation, Valentine said: “I’m very disappointed by it. It’s very unprofessional. Totally unprofessional. All the years when I’ve managed, I’ve said, ‘I made a mistake.’ I never criticize anybody else.”
Valentine, picturing the next day’s headlines, envisioned himself as the villain.
“I know how it [the coverage of the protest] will be,” Valentine said. “The other guy made the mistake and I’ll be the idiot. Absolutely. And it will be huge.”
Enough with this “ridiculousness,” Valentine said. Then he talked about it later. He said he expected better from “someone who’s a pro across the way.”
“If I put a player not on my lineup card in the game, he would have protested,” Valentine said.
During Valentine’s second conversation with Marsh, with two outs in the ninth, Aguilera walked off the mound and glared at Valentine. Afterward, he was careful not to trash the Mets’ manager.
“You’d hate to think he’d do something like that,” Aguilera said. “I don’t want to point a finger at him … It did irritate me a little bit at the time, sure.”
Valentine said if the Cubs had used an ineligible player and he had not protested he would be asking himself the question, “How do I answer to may GM, my owner?
“Believe me, I did not want to protest that game,” Valentine said. “I’m not trying to make anybody look bad, especially myself. I know what that looks like.”