NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

"Bobby is a baseball genius," said Matt Franco, th
e former Met who played for Valentine in Queens an
d in Japan. "Sometimes that gets under people’s sk
in. But the players loved him. They could see he w
as out for them."
Before he made any changes in Japan, Valentine wou
ld first take on what he wanted to alter, particul
arly the rigorous workouts. He fielded so many gro
und balls he felt his arm was going to fall off. "
It has to be right," he would say to his bench coa
ch, Frank Rampen, as he thought about what to chan
ge.
Valentine wasn’t always right, though. He institut
ed changes with the team draft that sometimes back
fired, and offended others with the new uniforms h
e helped design. But he kept going.
In 2005, when the young third baseman Toshiaki Ima
e asked for three days off to be with his wife as
she gave birth, Valentine’s Japanese coaches said
it was out of the question. Valentine gave him the
three days, and when Imae returned he went on a h
itting tear and was eventually named the most valu
able player of the Japan Series.
Perhaps the biggest change that Valentine brought
about involved the fans’ access to the players. He
insisted that the eight-foot chicken-wire fences
that extended from foul pole to foul pole and sepa
rated the fans from the players should come down.
He wanted his players to sign autographs. Accordin
g to Larry Rocca, a former sportswriter who became
a Marines executive, Valentine’s reasoning wasn’t
only about building good will. When Valentine fir
st returned in 2004, the players were lacking in s
elf-esteem. Why would anyone want their autographs
? The team was no good. But Valentine reasoned tha
t if the players saw fans asking for autographs, t
heir confidence might get a boost and so might the