Yesterday Bobby Valentine decided it was appropriate to call out the Yankees for allegedly not being as out-in-the-community as the Mets were following the 9/11 attacks. Later in the day Yankees president Randy Levine fired back, as reported at ESPN New York:
“Bobby Valentine should know better than to be pointing fingers on a day like today. Today is a day of reflection and prayer. The Yankees, as has been well documented, visited Ground Zero, the Armory, the Javits Center, St. Vincent’s Hospital and many other places during that time. We continue to honor the 9/11 victims and responders. On this day, he would have been better to have kept his thoughts to himself rather than seeking credit, which is very sad to me.”
This morning Bobby V. was on the Erik Kuselias show on the NBC Radio Network. He is not backing down. He responded to Levine’s comments thusly:
For those of you who can’t play the audio:
Bobby Valentine response to Randy Levine: “There weren’t any Yankees out there. If there were, Mr. Levine can come up with a photograph…”
— Erik Kuselias Show (@EKShow) September 12, 2013
More Bobby V. To Randy Levine: “All I remember is people asking for the Yankees and me making excuses for them not being there.”
— Erik Kuselias Show (@EKShow) September 12, 2013
OK. I have no idea what Valentine is trying to prove here. No one has made any attempt whatsoever to undersell or criticize anything he or the Mets did after 9/11. No one to my knowledge has attempted to aggrandize what the Yankees did at the Mets expense. That Valentine thinks it’s necessary, 12 years later, to play this game is a mystery. He should drop it.
