Larry Brown Sports

Can you think of a more appropriate ending to the disastrous season the Red Sox have had than Bobby Valentine crashing his bicycle while reading a text message from Dustin Pedroia? Neither can we. While we certainly don’t want to see anyone get hurt, that’s the situation the world has presented us with.

According to the New York Times, Valentine — an avid cyclist — was riding on a slippery path in Central Park when he got a text from his second baseman. He looked up after reading it and realized he had swerve to avoid two tourists who were walking in front of him, which caused him to lose his balance and crash into a ditch next to the Central Park Reservoir. He suffered minor injuries to his knees and hips.

“I shouldn’t have been reading a text while I was riding,” he said. “That’s the wrong thing to do. But at least I was wearing my helmet.”

If you shouldn’t text and drive, you shouldn’t text and ride. As for the text, Bobby V. said Pedroia was informing him that he would play in Tuesday night’s game against the Yankees despite a broken ring finger on his left hand. Although the season is a lost cause for Boston, Pedroia has said he is trying to set an example for the team’s younger players by letting them know being in the majors means playing through injuries.

“Hey, if he can play with that, I can certainly manage with this,” Valentine said.

Not to mention, he should enjoy his managerial career while it lasts. After a season in which he made some mind-boggling coaching decisions, Tuesday and Wednesday night are likely the last two times Bobby V. will ever manage an MLB team.

H/T WEEI.com

Dustin Pedroia left the Yankees-Red Sox game on Wednesday after learning from manager Bobby Valentine that his wife had gone into labor. Pedroia’s wife, Kelli, attended the game, but she left midway through after realizing she was getting ready to give birth to the couple’s second child.

Pedroia left the game after the sixth with his team down 3-1. The Red Sox eventually lost 5-4 despite the second baseman going 2-for-3.

Below you can see a photo of how Kelli Pedroia looked before the game:

She was one day past her due date, so it probably came as no surprise to Dustin that it happened Wednesday night.

After seeing the Yahoo! Sports report on Tuesday about several Red Sox players ripping Bobby Valentine in a meeting with the owners last month, all indications are that Valentine has lost his clubhouse in his first year as manager in Boston. The team has not turned things around from its epic September collapse last year, and many of them feel the need to find somewhere to point their fingers. Dustin Pedroia insists he is not one of those players.

“I don’t think Bobby should be fired,” Pedroia after Tuesday night’s loss to the Orioles according to the Boston Herald. “Listen, we haven’t played well. That’s the bottom line. I’m not going to blame anything on Bobby. It’s on the players. Last year wasn’t on Tito (Terry Francona). I know he took it hard. We all did. It’s on the players, man.”

With Jason Varitek having retired and Kevin Youkilis now playing in Chicago, Pedroia is the supposed leader of the Red Sox. However, part of Tuesday’s bombshell report included a story about a photo that is circulating through the organization that shows Bobby V. apparently sleeping and a caption that reads “Our manager contemplating his lineup at 3:30 p.m.” If you remember, Dustin was also very vocal in voicing his displeasure about Valentine earlier in the season when Bobby questioned Youkilis’ motivation.

While I agree that Valentine needs to be fired if he can’t earn the respect of the team, that doesn’t mean I blame him in any way for what has happened this season in Boston. This team embarrassed itself last September when Bobby V. wasn’t around, and they’ve managed to do it again this season. The party animal attitude and sense of entitlement around the Red Sox clubhouse has poisoned the team. Valentine is nothing more than a victim of circumstance.

Photo credit: Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE

Dustin Pedroia has a picture of a shirtless Tim Tebow hanging in his locker. True story.

But don’t worry; it’s not as bad as it sounds.

According to The Boston Globe, Pedroia pasted a picture of his head onto Tebow’s muscle-bound body and hung it in his locker.

And here we were thinking that the human “laser show” was confident in his abilities. Meanwhile, Tebow seems to find the entire frenzy over his shirtless pictures to be amusing.

“Sometimes it does get a little comical and funny to me,” Tebow said of the attention. “It’s really not cliché, I just try not to think about it or worry about it or pay attention to it. I try to be myself and live as much of a normal life as I can without having any of this change who I am or what I am or why I do it. That’s something I kind of take pride in is not changing, especially my values, my pride, my faith, anything like that.”

Cue the Baywatch intro theme song.

H/T The Huddle
Photo: Rich Barnes-US PRESSWIRE

Last week, a report surfaced that discussed the possibility that Bobby Valentine is losing the Red Sox clubhouse. Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com cited an unnamed player who said Valentine doesn’t have the support of “anyone” in the clubhouse. He was also told that Adrian Gonzalez and a couple of other players don’t communicate with Valentine.

Dustin Pedroia was also mentioned in the story because of an incident in Chicago where Valentine came out of the dugout for a mound visit and Pedroia was the only member of the infield to not partake in the discussion. Prior to Thursday’s game against the White Sox, Pedey explained what happened.

“I swallowed my dip, man,” he told reporters according to WEEI. “Bobby came out and right when I went to take a step I went to take my dip out and I (expletive) swallowed it. Man down. I chilled out right there. David (Ortiz) was playing first base and he said, ‘What the (expletive) is wrong with you?’ I told him, ‘I swallowed my dip, man.’”

Pedroia, who was very vocal in sticking up for Kevin Youkilis earlier in the season, went on to say that him and Valentine “get along great.” Swallowing your tobacco can’t be a comfortable feeling, and I’m sure Mike Napoli could tell us all about that.

With Cody Ross’s walk-off home run Thursday night, the Red Sox took three out of four from the White Sox. Assuming David Ortiz doesn’t miss a ton of time, the team seems to be getting healthy and showing signs of life. If they revert to losing, we’ll hear all about how none of the players respect Valentine. If they can keep the momentum that they have started to build in the second half going, everyone will talk about how Valentine is doing a tremendous job.

H/T Hardball Talk
Photo credit: Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE

Bryce Harper’s hilarious “That’s a clown question, bro” response to a reporter in Toronto led to one of the catchiest phrases of the year. Although Harper has been the object of our scrutiny here at LBS, we can’t say we blame him for his response; he was being set up with a dumb question by a reporter who was insensitive to the youngster’s religious beliefs.

Another person who didn’t like the line of questioning is Dustin Pedroia. The Red Sox second baseman says he knows the identity of the reporter and that he’s planning to “blow him up” when the team visits Toronto for three games beginning Sept. 14.

Pedroia felt Harper handled himself well.

“Poor kid,” Pedroia said of Harper on Wednesday. “I would have said [expletive] you, I’m 19.”

Of course he would have. That intense muddy chicken doesn’t mess around. Can’t wait to see what he does to the reporter in September.

H/T D.C. Sports Bog

You know how they say what goes around comes around?  An American League MVP found out exactly what that phrase means on Wednesday afternoon.  You might remember a few months back when Dustin Pedroia pranked David Ortiz by telling him the Red Sox scorekeeper had cheated him out of an RBI during a game.  The prank resulted in Ortiz interrupting Terry Francona’s press conference like an idiot, so the execution was obviously perfect by Pedroia. During an appearance on WEEI’s The Big Show on Wednesday, Pedroia was given a taste of his own medicine. 

The hosts of the show arranged for Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier to call in pretending to be a Boston fan and rip on Pedroia, telling him how much better the newly-acquired Nick Punto is than him. Ethier and Pedroia were teammates at Arizona State and are still close friends, so it’s possible Pedroia knew what was coming. Either way, the audio is fantastic. Skip ahead to the 1:20 mark for the fun stuff:

Read The Rest of the Story…