He has taken credit for inventing the sandwich wrap, donned fake glasses and a mustache in the dugout, and always has unique opinions. So it might not have surprised many when former Mets manager now film producer and athletic director at Sacred Heart University Bobby Valentine told SI.com’s Maggie Gray on Friday that he thinks Performance Enhancing Drugs are GOOD for sports.
The comments came as Valentine, who has been a regular during the pennant race for SNY, was making the rounds promoting a new film which he co-produced with Andrew Muscato called “DOPED The Dirty Side of Sports,” which debits this Wednesday night on EPIX.
“Probably, if you want to see the best out of your athlete,” Valentine said in the interview. “If it’s not harmful to the athlete. There’s a lot of really good drugs out there that we do take that make us feel better and perform better, and I think these PEDs that people talk about, that are performance-enhancers, will eventually get into the mainstream.”
When pressed he did backtrack a bit, comparing the use of PED’s in the future to what weight rooms were when they first started in baseball.
“When we had a weight room with the (Texas) Rangers it was unheard of in baseball, now look at all the enhancements that are used today,” he added, while noting that he was not with Texas when Jose Canseco happened upon the scene.
Valentine’s point appeared to be more about the ability for athletes to get an edge with performance not harm their bodies for the long term, although he did downplay some of the facts that have come out in the past use of PED’s, especially their detrimental effects in MLB’s popularity while he was at the helm of teams like the Mets.
As the humility of Terry Collins played out this past weekend when the Mets clinched, it’s always good to know Bobby V. is still there to light a fire from time to time.