During an interview with ESPN's Karl Ravech, Bobby Valentine said it took twenty minutes between the time the Boston Red Sox offered him their managerial position and the time he accepted it. First, Valentine needed to call his wife. And if she had said she wasn't sure, Valentine knew his response.
"I would have said 'OK, well, see you later, I'm doing it anyway. You know me."
Video of the interview after the jump.
A brief transcript of the interview follows (via ESPN):
Ravech: "Where were you when you found out this job was actually going to be offered to you?"
Valentine: "I was laying in a bed in Japan. It took one phone call and about 20 minutes to call back and say 'Thank you I accept.'"
Ravech: "What were you thinking about for 20 minutes?"
Valentine: "I had to ask my wife what she thought."
Ravech: "And if your wife said 'I'm not sure'?"
Valentine (joking): "I would have said 'OK, well, see you later, I'm doing it anyway. You know me."
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Valentine on the challenge ahead: "I don't know what this is going to be, how it's going to be done. I don't know when things will come together or come apart. But I know that because it's so big and so special, it's going to take every second of every day, these 80 days (until spring training), and beyond."
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Valentine on getting to know his players: "They must know me by my reputation. Some of them might have heard good things and some of them might have heard things that aren't good. Now it's going to be up to them to figure it out when they actually get to meet me because I'm not going away. ...
"They're going to get to know me for sure and they're going to have to make their own opinions. We'll see how that happens when that's all done. It's not going to be a popularity contest. I'm not running for class president. I'm trying to win a world championship, OK. It's a big difference between popularity contest and competition and winning it."
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