Bobby Valentine isn’t ready to subpoena his players to find out the specifics of the infamous Rickey Henderson-Bobby Bonilla card game during the final crushing moments of Game 6 against the Braves in the NLCS. However, Valentine is looking for clues.
“I have not talked to them about this yet individually,” Valentine said last night at the John McSherry Foundation fundraiser at the All Star Cafe. “I am still trying to find a person who actually saw them playing. I haven’t talked to all my players yet and it’s not an inquisition, it’s not like I am calling them to ask them to squeal.
“Right now, I am checking with most of the guys who had injuries. I haven’t talked to all of them but the ones I have talked to, it hasn’t come up yet.”
Since some of his pitchers were livid that the outfielders were playing cards at the most crucial time in some players’ careers, Valentine expects the issue to surface. And he wouldn’t be surprised if Henderson and Bonilla are still Mets when spring training opens that there won’t be a few teammates expecting an apology.
“When it does (come up in conversation), and somebody says, ‘Hey, by the way, I didn’t like it, or I saw it’ or whatever the heck it is, I think eventually in some kind of group form, that’s going to be, or should be, addressed.”
Everywhere Valentine goes, he says people have stopped him to tell him how great the final portion of the Mets’ season was and how scintillating the Braves series was. He even has received about two dozen letters from Braves fans telling him how exciting the NLCS was.
“I try to say it was close but we didn’t do what we wanted to do,” Valentine said. “And people don’t allow me to continue.”
Unfortunately, it’s not long before the card game surfaces.
“Not everybody, but as I said, most of the passing comments don’t end when I say it would have been great if we had won a few more games,” Valentine said. “I would say within the next two or three topics the card game has been brought up.”
As for downloading the Braves series from his mind, Valentine said it’s been a week since he didn’t wake up in the morning thinking there was a game to be played. And he admits to playing certain scenarios over, wondering if he had done this could he have done that.
“In the end, it doesn’t matter,” Valentine said.
As for the speculation that he could be managing Ken Griffey Jr. or Alex Rodriguez next year, Valentine downplayed such talk.
“Right now that’s kind of fantasy only because it’s happening so quickly,” Valentine said. “But a week ago I was asked about Juan Gonzalez and I thought that was fantasy.”
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Roger Cedeno, who could be the Mets’ leadoff hitter if they can move Henderson, has been shelved with a bad back while playing in Venezuela.
“We had him double X-rayed and double MRI and there is nothing,” Valentine said. “His back is just stiff.”
