STAMFORD, Conn. – Some approach him on the street just to exchange greetings and to shake his hand. Even more don’t hesitate to interrupt a conversation to inquire for his autograph. Still others feel no compunction to halt him during a lunch to reminisce about the feats of his Rippowam High School football juggernaut or the 2000 Mets’ run to the World Series.
Some would say Bobby Valentine is so popular in his hometown that he could be elected mayor.
And that’s exactly what he hopes happens.
Valentine, 71, is one of Connecticut’s most decorated schoolboy athletes, a former major-league baseball player and the former manager of the Mets, among other things. But now one of Stamford’s favorite sons is seeking its highest elected office. He has taken a leave of absence from his position of athletic director at nearby Sacred Heart University to launch his mayoral campaign.
"My family's been here for 111 years: when my grandparents got off the boat [and] went through Ellis Island, this is where they settled," Valentine said last week in an interview with Newsday at the Bedford Street art gallery that would in days become his campaign headquarters. "This was where I always came home to. When I left, I took the phonebook. When I was on the road, I had the hometown newspapers sent to me. . . . I knew that this was the place that I would always rest my head. I even have a plot here. Stamford means a great deal to me and I want the best for it."
The synergy between Valentine and his hometown is undeniable. Not only has he lived in four different Stamford neighborhoods during his life and attended its public schools, he has opened a couple of thriving small businesses here.
He called his 1981 decision to become a restaurateur, open Bobby V’s Restaurant and Sports Bar in the hardscrabble area of Columbus Park and managing it into a popular destination one of his local triumphs. He also runs a sports academy here that caters from everyone from grade schoolers to elite athletes.
Thus that trio of issues in his personal foundation – living, learning and running a small business in Stamford – are unsurprisingly three huge planks in the Valentine campaign platform.
Valentine can list a number of reasons why he wants to be Stamford’s mayor; from a desire to give back to the community that endowed him with so much to a yearning for Connecticut’s third largest city to achieve what he sees as unmet potential. However, he often comes back to this moment being "a time for change" and how he has been responsible for transformation in so many of his undertakings.
"Doing this is about what I have to offer, that all of the things that I've done in my life have prepared me to do just this: to lead a community after COVID and into a new world that’s changing rapidly," Valentine said. "What I've done, probably most often, is [transform] places and things. Sacred Heart used to be thought of as a commuter school and now it’s known as the second largest Catholic school in New England (according to collegestats.org). The team I managed in Japan [the Chiba Lotte Marines] had been a bottom dweller for decades and my work there, on the field and in the [front office] was part of making it a [Japan Series] champion. And people know where the Mets were when I got there [in 1996] and how that turned around into a pennant winner.
"It’s just my skill set and this job description are a perfect fit. ... I’ve lived the Stamford experience and I understand what makes things happen and how to make things better. I think most everything I did in my life were better at the end than when I got there and that's what I want to do here in Stamford."
NO PARTY LINE?
Managing the Mets through the 2000 World Series? Making the Marines a successful organization and popular brand name in Japan? Those were major undertakings but running a political campaign in today’s politically-divided times – even a local one – will be an enormous lift.
To that end, Valentine is not running as a Democrat, Republican or Independent. He uses the word "unaffiliated" and it is no coincidence. He recognizes that the current political climate in the United States may present a sizeable obstacle in getting elected and asked if he worries it might, he replied "I certainly hope not."
"I don't believe that national politics has anything to do with what needs to get done in this city or in other small cities around the country," Valentine explained. "We need our schools to be the shining light of our community. We need to have living environments for our people, who are moving up in the world and even want to just stay here in Stamford. We need to make sure that the businesses not only get recruited here but, once they get here, they stay here and become part of the community. What does national politics have to do with that?"
Painfully aware of how the political parties have become so divided – in their views of the issues, their take on what constitutes a "fact" and the things that motivate them – Valentine sees being unaffiliated with a political party a possible way to cut through the differences.
"Just as I was a Yankees fan when I grew up and then became a Mets guy as I got older, I don't want to be identified by the hat that I'm wearing," he explained. "I want to be identified by the character of the person that I am and let that character lead me and lead the people of this community in the right direction."
Former Mets manager Bobby Valentine, poses ouside at Ferguson Library in, Stamford, Conn., on July 4. Credit: Stan Godlewski
To no one’s surprise, members of both parties want to label him. Elected Democrats have reportedly insinuated that Valentine is in some way hiding Republican leanings; elected Republicans have wondered aloud about his popularity among Democratic voters.
Valentine has no political experience, outside of being appointed the city’s public safety chief in 2011. And its a rugged landscape for the coming election. Stamford in recent years has leaned Democrat. The two-term mayor David Martin, a Democrat, was elected in 2017 with better than 58% of the vote and is now being primaried by state representative Caroline Simmons. What that means for Valentine is unclear.
"I get that people affiliated with a party have a certain infrastructure and databases that they can reply on," Valentine said. "I'm unaffiliated ... and building this from the ground all the way up. Everything from the volunteers – they’re all first-time volunteers – to the people I'm hiring. They’ve never worked for someone who was unaffiliated and they are here with the knowledge that no one's ever won an elected office in this city as an unaffiliated [candidate]. I've got a heavy lift, that's for sure."
In announcing his candidacy, one of Valentine’s first forward-facing messages was a video shot on the West Main Street Bridge. It was no coincidence. The structure – once vehicular and now pedestrian – sits between the largely underserved communities on the west side of town and the thriving downtown and has been in disrepair for years. The city legislature has allocated money to address the bridge, but it has become a symbol of government inaction. "Things aren’t getting done," Valentine said, "and that’s what I hope to change.
PLAYING POLITICAL HARDBALL
While it's hard to see Valentine’s as anything other than an underdog candidacy, its early days have been met with a lot of enthusiasm. Campaign manager Dan Miller said Monday that in the initial fundraising period since it was rolled out, the campaign raised $300,000.
Valentine has two big forthcoming projects that both have the potential to sustain the enthusiasm and keep him in the spotlight between now and November.
Turner Sports this fall will air the forthcoming documentary "More Than Just a Game: Baseball Remembers 9/11," which tells the story of how baseball helped the city and country rebound from the terrorist attacks. It features Joe Torre and Valentine among others who were on the New York baseball scene at that time.
Former Mets Bobby Valentine poses outside Ferguson Library in Stamford, Conn., on July 4. Credit: Stan Godlewski
Valentine helped with the recovery by working in the Shea Stadium parking lot loading supplies for people displaced after the attacks and helping comfort the families of first responders who died in the line of duty that day. He believes the work there gives him an experience that could serve Stamford well as it emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic because "helping families heal and helping the City of New York come back was not a small task; I had a small part in that, but I understood the elements that were needed and being there in that way was a valuable experience."
Valentine also has an upcoming book, "Valentine’s Way: My Adventurous Life and Times," authored with Peter Golenbock that is due to hit bookstores two weeks before election day.
If he is going to have a chance for success in this uphill climb to office, Valentine is going to have to outwork the other candidates at the very least. That means getting out into the public, as he did several weeks ago when he toured the west side of Stamford, to hear the desires of the voters in that neighborhood. It means talking to people and pressing the flesh.
Of course, he does have one thing going for him there: the people of Stamford already are eager to shake his hand.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
