MLB Players Vote Bobby Valentine As Second-Least Respected Manager
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Bobby Valentine era in Boston has gotten off to a bit of a rough start in terms of the team's record, but it's also not going well in terms of the manager's reputation.
Men's Journal surveyed 100 Major League Baseball players with several questions, including who is the least respected manager?
The results put Valentine at No. 2, with 14 percent of the votes, behind only Miami's Ozzie Guillen, who received 36 percent of the votes.
No other manager was even close to either of those two men, as Cleveland's Manny Acta was third with just six percent of the votes.
Yikes.
Valentine, 62, is in his first year back in the big leagues after a nine-year hiatus in the U.S. Prior to managing the Sox, he managed the Rangers and Mets, while also twice managing the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan.
One of the big offseason story lines in Boston was how Valentine would work with some Sox players whom he had criticized while working for ESPN, so perhaps some players surveyed were in the same boat.
Tampa Bay's Joe Maddon was voted as the smartest manager, with 25 percent of the votes, while Alex Rodriguez was voted as the second-most hated player (10 percent), trailing the White Sox' A.J. Pierzynski (34 percent).
