One thing we can say for certain is the Red Sox have always led the Major Leagues when it comes to collecting certifiably insane, batshiat crazy players.  Wade Boggs once explained how he got away from a guy who pulled a knife on him with “I willed myself invisible.” Carl Everett was a Moon Landing/ Dinosaur Truther.  Roger Moret once went into a trance in the clubhouse and stood like a statue for hours.  Moe Berg was a genius and a superspy in WWII who spend his retirement unemployed, sitting around in a Japanese robe and reading 150 newspapers a day.  Not to mention your various Oil Can Boyds, Roger Clemenses and Jimmy Piersall, who cracked up so bad they made a movie about him.  So I haven’t followed this team my whole life without learning a thing or two about mentally unstable crackpots.

So I raise a semi-serious question here. Given everything that’s transpired the last 5 months or so and the last 2 weeks in particular, I ask you: Is Bobby Valentine insane?  I mean, can we use his own words and behavior to prove that managing this team has driven him mad to the point that he’s now, by the clinical definiton, non compos mentis (“not of composed mind”)?

To prove my case, I will use as a reference  the most reliable, trusted and dependable source of information ever invented for bloggers too lazy to look anywhere else: Wikipedia.  And they define “Psychosis” as: “an abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a ‘loss of contact with reality’… People with psychosis may have one or more of the following: hallucinations, delusions, catatonia, or a thought disorder, as described below.

Hallucinations - experiences such as seeing and interacting with fully formed animals and people, hearing voices, and having complex tactile sensations… hallucinations tend to be particularly distressing when they are derogatory, commanding or preoccupying.

Evidence Bobby V might be nuts: From his interview on WEEI yesterday: “Why would somebody even, that’s stuff that a comic strip person would write…  how could someone in real life say that?…Who wrote that I was late, by the way? That really pisses me off.” And: “Breakfast itself was very disappointing. … The oatmeal was cold. They didn’t even have brown sugar for the oatmeal. Of all places, Seattle not having brown sugar. John Henry’s ham was overcooked”

Delusions – beliefs, some of which are paranoid in nature…  defined as arising suddenly and not being comprehensible in terms of normal mental processes

Evidence Bobby V is nuts: From the Yahoo! article of the other day: “‘What difference does it make?’ Valentine said when someone asked how he felt after the embarrassment in Oakland. Reporters described Valentine as ‘despondent,’ ‘almost whispering,’ uttering his words ‘softly’ and ‘quietly.’”


Catatonia - a profoundly agitated state in which the experience of reality is generally considered to be impaired…It involves excessive and purposeless motor behavior as well as extreme mental preoccupation which prevents intact experience of reality. An example would be someone walking very fast in circles to the exclusion of anything else with a level of mental preoccupation

Evidence Bobby V is nuts: Also from the Yahoo! piece: “Even from the first day, when he circled the Red Sox’s spring training complex like he was getting paid by the step, players wondered if all the movement was false hustle and all the talk bluster.”

Thought disorder – describes an underlying disturbance to conscious thought and is classified largely by its effects on speech and writing.. speech becomes incomprehensible and it is known as “word-salad”.

Evidence Bobby V is nuts: Asked why he batted Scott Podsednik 3rd, Valentine gave this explanation: “Just a mistake. Is that what it says on the lineup? What the fuck. Switch it up. Who knows? Maybe it will look good. I haven’t seen it.”


Conclusion: I get that no one likes to get slammed in the press.  Even the manager of a boring, unlikable team that’s quit on him and is 12 games under-.500.  But confusing comic strip people with real life and obsessing over who’s saying bad things about you? “Complex tactile sensations” about brown sugar and ham? 100% Hallucinations. Incomprehensibility?  Claiming you’re the inventor of the wrap?  Perfect Delusional episodes.  Walking in circles for no discernible reason? Textbook Catatonia. Explaining his bizarre decisions with an indecipherable word soup?  Pure Thought Disorder.  So I can only reach one conclusion: Bobby Valentine has gone certifiably insane and by next month should be asking Nurse Ratched if he can put the World Series on the nuthouse TV.

On the other hand, I could be wrong.  Because nothing says “sanity” like wanting to punch Glen Ordway in the mouth. @JerryThornton1