How Bobby Valentine pushed Kevin Youkilis out of Boston originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Boston Red Sox fans prefer to act as though the 2012 MLB season never happened, and for good reason. The Bobby Valentine Experience made for one of the most tumultuous years in the franchise’s history.
Valentine replaced Terry Francona as manager in Nov. 2011 following the team’s infamous September collapse. The disastrous finish to the 2011 campaign was blamed on Red Sox pitchers eating fried chicken and drinking beer during games in which they weren’t scheduled to take the mound. During spring training, Valentine left his mark by banning alcohol in the clubhouse.
MORE BOBBY V EXPERIENCE: Josh Beckett’s day off
It didn’t take long for there to be rumors of a “snitch” on the roster. Some players identified veteran infielder Kevin Youkilis as the individual who leaked the chicken and beer story to the media. That led to a rift between Youkilis and a few of his Red Sox teammates.
“That’s when it first came up, the idea the pitchers hated (Kevin) Youkilis,” Valentine said in NBC10’s “The Bobby Valentine Experience” documentary. “They didn’t want him sitting on the same side of the room. They had to change things around before everyone got there. It was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. …
“Youkilis came in one day and he said, ‘Hey listen, I’ll play hard when I’m out on the field, but I’m not ever going out to dinner with these guys or going to talk to him off the field.’ Then pitchers would come in and say, ‘I don’t want to be pitching when the guy’s playing third base because he’s gonna let the ball go down the line.”
The Youkilis dilemma only became more complicated when the 2012 season got underway. Not even a month into the new season, Valentine called out Youk during an interview. He said the two-time World Series champion wasn’t as physically or emotionally into the game as he was in previous years.
“He was quite angry,” Valentine recalled. “And he said, ‘I can’t believe you said those things on TV last night in an interview.’ And he said, ‘My agent just texted me these comments that you made, and they’re the worst comments that anybody ever made about me.’
“I was sick and tired of it. That was as bad of a situation as you could imagine and he was totally struggling with this situation. It wasn’t fun for him to be with this group and it wasn’t fun for anyone else including me to have him with the group.”
A couple of months later, the situation was resolved. Youkilis was traded to the Chicago White Sox, officially ending his nine-year tenure in Boston.
Valentine rejoiced.
“It didn’t go away until Youk went away,” he said.
You can revisit the Valentine/Youkilis drama and much more from that wild 2012 Red Sox season by watching the first few chapters of NBC10’s “The Bobby Valentine Experience” below. You can watch the full documentary here.
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