I participated in a Zoom conference call recently. Bobby Valentine, lifelong baseball man, was the special guest. I couldn’t write about everything he talked about due to space constraints for my JAPAN Forward column, so I’ve saved this material before the column intro for this post.
Valentine discussed baseball from his playing days to the present. He even spoke about his late father-in-law Ralph Branca and former college roommate Bill Buckner. Both men were involved in two of the most infamous gaffes in MLB history.
In short both men handled ridicule with class.
Branca gave up The Shot Heard ’Round the World on Oct. 3, 1951 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsyYMfEA1sg) and heard about it every day for the rest of his life. (Bobby Thomson belted the three-run, walk-off blast in the ninth inning in the third game of the National League playoff to send the New York Giants past the Brooklyn…
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Ed Odeven Reporting 