"Bobby Valentine yesterday expanded on his recent phone conversation with Josh Beckett, who was not happy that the manager had complained about all the time the starter was taking in between pitches in a game against the New York Yankees.

It turns out Valentine, in his previous job as an ESPN analyst for the game, might have fallen for a trap laid by Beckett.

"He felt, and probably correctly so, at the time he was dominating the Yankees and one of the things mentioned across the field was from (Yankees hitting coach) Kevin Long," Valentine said during the "Christmas at Fenway" ticket-selling event at Fenway Park. "I didn't remember this as an ESPN announcer, but Kevin Long started complaining about him taking too long and (Beckett) felt, 'Why don't I take long, if they don't like it, that's exactly what I want to do — do what they don't like, do what makes them uncomfortable, what makes them not successful.' So he said that what I, and we at ESPN, we fell into his trap, or we bought into Kevin Long's strategy to reverse his success."