ESPN has Valentine Fever

I ignored this comment to replace Joe Torre with Bobby Valentine some time ago, but now I see that Valentine fever has swept through Page 2 (via Jonah Keri wondering why he's not managing) and must be stopped. Is there not some sort of vaccine that these guys can take to protect from this?

How else could you explain a career 0.500 manager who managed to underachieve in both Texas and in New York, and whose greatest accomplishment is sneaking back into a dugout in a poorly-drawn fake mustache, be suggested two times as someone who could be a potential “savior” manager?

Does he have some sort of ability that I don’t know about, and I’ve never seen? I know he’s reputed to be a managerial genius; is there any evidence of this? Did multiple Mets late-season collapses not sufficiently damage his reputation to keep him out of the majors forever?

Can someone explain this to me? Please? Anybody? Does Bobby Valentine have naked pictures of ESPN honchos following his stint as an announcer for the network? Is he cousin to Bud Selig? Does he have Svengali-like powers that we can only suspect? Seriously, what’s the deal here?

Imagine if Valentine ended up managing the Yankees, thus ensuring 4 or 5 years of futility. The only competition for the Red Sox would be the Orioles (now in their 12th year of corrupt incompetence) and the Blue Jays (it’s baseball, eh!).

We’d have to live with Red Sox fans, insufferable under the best of circumstances, shoveling a potent cocktail of self-loathing and hubris down our throats 24/7, abetted by celebrity fans and sympathetic media. Is the sports world ready for that? I doubt it.