Where's the love for Valentine?

Since last managing in the majors in 2002, Bobby Valentine has become a beloved figure in Japan. Jun Takagi/SI

The newly-released documentary The Zen of Bobby V is a fascinating look at the culture of baseball in Japan, the last major country where pro baseball is the No. 1 sport, as Chiba Lotte Marine manager Bobby Valentine reminds us in the film about him.

The movie is also an overdue reminder that one of the world's five best managers is no longer in the major leagues.

If I were to make a film about the same subject, mine would be titled The Shame of Bobby V.

It's a travesty that Valentine doesn't have a managing job here. He won a Japan League title in 2005 and took a Mets team which featured Benny Agbayani, Derek Bell and Jay Payton as the starting outfield trio all the way to the World Series in 2000 against a much better Yankees team.

Yet since being fired by the Mets three years later, Valentine hasn't received one offer from MLB that's befitting a man who's among the most energetic, enthusiastic, innovative and knowledgeable in the game. Valentine's talents may not be fully appreciated in the U.S. If they were, his two best offers to return to manage here in recent years wouldn't have been identical deals for a 75 percent pay cut.

Perhaps that oversight can be rectified. The perfect position could come free soon if the underperforming Seattle Mariners don't snap out of their season-long funk.

The Mariners shouldn't look anywhere else to revive their team. For no known reason, they are hitting 39 points below their 2007 batting average (.248 from .287) with close to the same lineup (Jose Guillen is the one notable loss), a sure sign something's amiss.

The Mariners would be a perfect fit for Valentine. They have Japanese ownership, two Japanese stars in outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and catcher Kenji Johjima and a recent history of underachievement.

"I have a job, and they have a manager,'' Valentine responded in a succinct email message from Japan.

However, friends of Valentine insist he loves Seattle and would be intrigued by that job. Plus, it would add stability to his family life. His wife, Mary, can visit him in Japan only every other month now.

Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi respectfully declined to comment on my proposition to have Valentine take over for current Mariners manager John McLaren. Bavasi said he feels it's never a good idea for management to comment on the job status of its manager, no matter that status. Bavasi said, "We think we're a good team playing baseball ... John and I are both alarmed and concerned.''

Bavasi, who himself may be under some fire, is a very good baseball man with an uneven record as a hirer of managers, just like a lot of other GMs. But if Valentine isn't on his mind, don't blame Bavasi. He is not alone.

Valentine suggests in the film that he loves Japan and loves managing the Marines, and I believe he does. But I am also quite sure he'd accept a fair contract from the right MLB team, if one is ever offered to him again.

So far, one hasn't been forthcoming. The only bona fide proposals he's received to manage since the Mets fired him were both for $1 million a year, which happens to be $3 million a year less than he makes to manager Chiba Lotte and play a countrywide hero in Japan.

On the say-so of Valentine mentor Tommy Lasorda, who had a little more power at the time, the Dodgers offered Valentine a $1-million-a-year deal a couple years back. And so did the astute ownership group of the Tampa Bay Rays back when they were the Devil Rays.

According to Valentine intimates (and the movie), Bobby V was especially intrigued by the Tampa Bay job, as he loves to start from scratch. Instead, the Rays went with the erudite Joe Maddon, who's doing a nice job with the contending Rays.

Even more recently, the Reds called Valentine and talked about a contract for less than $1 million. That was before they gave Dusty Baker, whom Valentine managed circles around in the 2000 playoffs (and most other times), $11 million over three years.

The knocks on Valentine are as silly as they are well-chronicled. Valentine is very up-front and very smart and isn't at all equipped to be a push-button Moneyball manager. His brashness upset some people, and a couple of those people happened to be his bosses. One great thing about Valentine is that he is good to everyone, not just people who can help him (a trait that's clear in Zen where he is often seen talking to fans).

The idea he can't get along with bosses, though, is debunked by the reality that his GM in Texas, Tom Grieve, loves Valentine. And apparently so do the ownership groups from Texas (Valentine was still friendly with George W. Bush even after Bush fired him) and obviously Chiba Lotte. It's less clear how the Mets' bosses feel, though at least one member of the Wilpon family that owns the team regularly attends Bobby Valentine's Sports Academy in Stamford, Conn. Valentine even supported his old boss Bush for president, which only goes to show that nobody's perfect.