You must care, Craig, or you wouldn’t have passed on yet another irrelevant, immaterial piece on Valentine. Have the strength of your convictions and leave this kind of stuff alone. Write about baseball.

Yawkey was almost certainly a racist – if not an unapologetic bigot. He and his wife Jean were uncreative owners who stagnated and regressed a franchise that could have – should have – been more successful during their family’s interminable reign.

I am one Red Sox fan who believes “Yawkey Way” should be renamed “Henry’s Parade”.

No seriously, I challenge any Red Sox fan to explain to me why Henry’s legacy should take a back seat to any previous ownership. Despite the recent playoff drought, the Henry ownership group is clearly the most successful in the history of the Boston franchise.

In fact, in at least one way I kind of like it. I always found the region-specific programming the talk aspect of any local sports station sort of tedious. If I happen to be flipping around the dial and hit on 1050 when Valentine is on his weekly spot, then I certainly be interested in listening. Otherwise I very seldom have any desire to listen to Kaye’s show.

There are two points that none of the critics (and I agree with Craig almost ALL of them are Boston sports radio hosts) seemingly have considered – at least publicly:

1) This is quite possibly the last MLB job Bobby will ever have. Why shouldn’t Bobby milk this gig for every penny he can? He certainly has very obvious ties to NY. Is it really that big of a stretch that he would do a weekly spot with a NY host he is familiar with? The only reason this has gotten the exposure it has is because its in the context of the Red Sox and Yankees rivalry. Ultimately when Girardi does start appearing on WEEI (out of ratings war desperation) and Matheny begins appearing on Chicago radio; Mattingly on SF radio; Bochy on LA radio, etc . . . Bobby V will again be viewed as a leader . . . an innovator.

Excuse me for a moment while I dig my teeth into this tuna wrap.

2) This is PURE speculation on my part, but I not only believe it to be a likely explanation . . . I believe someday this will be revealed to be the true story behind Valentine/Kaye:

If there is one thing The Trio has been known for since taking ownership is a methodical and innovative approach to maximizing franchise revenues and dramatically elevating the Red Sox national & international profile.

No matter how Mets fans feel about Valentine’s legacy as their manager – he remains a borderline folk hero in Fairfield County (Southwestern Connecticut) – a STAUNCHLY Yankees region of CT.

FC is consistently one of, if not, the wealthiest region of the country – as well as the mostly densely populated region in the state. Fairfield County (which even many CT residents don’t consider part of New England – even though geographically it obviously is) has been the most difficult nut to crack in terms of drawing baseball Fans to Fenway. It’s the only region in CT where Met’s fans out number Red Sox fans.

Lucchino and Werner are constantly looking for ways to increase the franchise profile, thus from a marketing standpoint, it’s no stretch for me to assume that Bobby Valentine’s appearance on ESPN Radio NY is actually the branchild of Red Sox ownership and not necessarily Valentine making this decision unilaterally.

Let it go people…..

Being on any of Michael Kay’s shows is an honor!

Then again, IIRC, Francona made several appearances on Michael Kay’s show, and we all know what happened to him…