BOBBY BITES BACK

It didn't take long for Bobby V to get his licks in. I thought he might wait until the 14th, which would make for splashy headlines, but according to Ira Berkow in the New York Times, and Joel Sherman in the Post, Valentine was reserved and clipped in his comments two nights ago at the the Thurman Munson Awards Dinner. Valentine isn't the sort to ignore the kind of attacks directed at him by members of the New York Mets, but he also didn't seem particularly interested in starting a tabliod war.

There is an unflattering photograph of Valentine that accompanies the Berkow piece in the Times. Though Bobby V looks fit and dapper, the photo also suggests he's wound tight enough to be the proud owner of a cleft asshole.

"We had a lousy year last year and I did a bad job. That is the easy statement and a truism."

..."I find it almost rather criminal that after putting almost 10 years of my life, 24 hours a day, into an organization and a community that a couple of people who have never worn Met uniforms and one who wore it for one year and did not do much [Vaughn] can say things," Valentine said.

..."I don't know if it was orchestrated or not, but it's all nonsense."

...In regard to Glavine in particular, Valentine said: "His remarks are unfounded. I think I met him once in my life, and we shook hands. Glavine is a union leader and appears to be a very intelligent fellow. You would think he would base his opinions on experience and personal knowledge."

As for the theory that his departure fostered the ability to recruit more alluring players, Valentine said, "I'm not going to comment on that. I don't think it is worthy of comment. I'd like to find a person who really didn't come here because of me. There are 29 other teams out there. Go find that person who was a free agent whom the club wanted that didn't come because I was there, or else I say it is nonsensical to comment on that."

Bob Raissman reports in today's Daily News that Valentine will get his chance to speak his mind this season for ESPN after all. Perhaps Bobby will lie in the weeds and exact measures of revenge against his former team as the season unfolds.

The outspoken former manager will replace Buck Showalter in ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" studio and work a limited number of games for the all-sports cable network.

Two weeks ago, it appeared that talks between Valentine and ESPN had reached an impasse. As part of its three-year contract offer, ESPN had insisted that if Valentine bolted the TV gig for a manager's job, he would have to pay a penalty to the network.

Sources said Valentine initially rejected that stipulation. He obviously changed his mind.

"It's like any negotiation," a source familiar with the situation said. "You go through different phases. That was just one of them."

MOVIE MINUTE: DON'T SLEEP ON GARFIELD FESTIVAL

Bernard Weinraub wrote an interesting article in the New York Times last week on one of Hollywood's most-neglected stars, New Yorker, John Garfield, whose career is being celebrated throughout the month of February on Turner Movie Classics.

Before James Dean and Marlon Brando, before Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, there was John Garfield.

A tough kid who grew up in the 1920's on the streets of the Lower East Side, Brownsville and the Bronx, Garfield (whose original name was Julius Garfinkle) was one of the first dark-haired, working-class ethnic outsiders to turn into a Hollywood star, following the path of actors like James Cagney.

...Garfield's chip-on-the-shoulder style and his rugged looks often cast him as a social outsider on the screen: a boxer, a gangster, a soldier. The persona affected actors from the 1950's onward.

His relatively brief but dazzling career was cut short by a heart condition and the Hollywood blacklist. He was never a Communist, but he refused to name those, including his wife, Roberta, who had been. He died of a heart attack in 1952 at 39, and 10,000 fans gathered outside Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan. At the time it was the largest turnout for a celebrity funeral in New York since Rudolph Valentino's.

My grandfather, who for years worked for the Anti-Defamation League, helped Garfield during the Blacklist Era, though to what extent I'm not sure. I do know that Garfield was one of my father's idols. Pop's adoration was intensified I'm sure, by the fact that he actually met Garfield, who visited my grandfather's apartment on several occasions.

"He's a forgotten star," said David Heeley, one of the producers of "The John Garfield Story," a documentary that will have its premiere on Turner Classic Movies, the cable channel, on Monday, followed by a festival of 25 Garfield films, to be shown on Mondays through February. "He never lived long enough to become an icon like Humphrey Bogart."

His daughter, Julie Garfield, an acting teacher in New York, put it another way. "He was horribly neglected, forgotten, pushed aside," she said. "It was almost as if Hollywood was so ashamed of what was done to him that they almost made him disappear."

...Garfield is most remembered for his role opposite Lana Turner, in Tay Garnett's sexy drama "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946), based on James M. Cain's novel. His other films included "Humoresque" (1947), with Joan Crawford; Robert Rossen's classic "Body and Soul" (1947), in which he works his way up from poverty to become a champion boxer at great personal cost; and Abraham Polonsky's "Force of Evil" (1948), in which Garfield was acclaimed for his role as a greedy lawyer for racketeers. He also played the Jewish friend of Gregory Peck's character in Elia Kazan's "Gentlemen's Agreement" (1947), about anti-Semitism. Garfield was nominated twice for Oscars, as a supporting actor for his first film, "Four Daughters" (1938), and as best actor for "Body and Soul."

"He didn't know what happened to him in the end," Mr. Heeley said. "He didn't understand why they were hounding him. In the end he was scared."

Ms. Garfield, 57, was 6 when her father died. In an interview she spoke about him in a cracked voice: "It killed him, it really killed him. He was under unbelievable stress. Phones were being tapped. He was being followed by the F.B.I. He hadn't worked in 18 months. He was finally supposed to do `Golden Boy' on CBS with Kim Stanley. They did one scene. And then CBS canceled it. He died a day or two later."

Peep Garfield's complete credits, and while you're killing time waiting for the Grapefruit League to get started, check out some of Garfield's impressive film work over at Turner Movie Classics. "Body and Soul," one of my favorites, will give you a knew appreciation of the work Scorsese did years later, in "Raging Bull."