While it would have been fun to throw Keith Olbermann, Pedro Martinez and Bobby Valentine in a studio to talk some baseball, even Valentine’s braggadocio was just too much this time around.
Neil Best of Newsday reports that Valentine was up for consideration to but an analyst for postseason baseball with Olbermann and Martinez but was nixed after he made some widely disparaged comments earlier this month about how involved the Yankees were after the 9/11 attacks.
Valentine insisted the Yankees didn’t help the community after the terrorist attacks while the Mets — the team he was managing — held the city together. Even when given the chance to take his comments back, Valentine stuck with his remarks.
The critics, including Olbermann, piled on Valentine after that, and it appears the always-controversial Valentine was too controversial this time around.
“Bobby was one of a number of candidates being considered for the role, but we elected to go with the team of Keith, Pedro and Tom [Verducci], and we’re very excited about that combination in-studio for us,” a network spokesman said, according to Newsday.
Valentine will be proved wrong again in October, as there will be plenty of “Yankees on the streets of New York City” now that the Bombers have missed the playoffs.
