The Specialness of Derek Richard Valentino

The Specialness of Derek Richard Valentino

Many in baseball will agree that a pitcher’s most desired goal, the masterpiece of any career, and one of the most difficult feats to achieve in the entire sport of baseball is the perfect game. This feat is so rare is has only officially been achieved 20 times. As most of you know, math is not my fortay but when you think about it, there will be 2,430 games played this season alone and since professional teams began playing in the late 1800s, that is an awful lot of games to have only 20 been perfect. A fan who observes a perfect game will see the pitcher work hard the entire time, will experience highs, lows, and exhilarating moments that will surely bring a smile to his face and have them leave in almost a state of shock. It is not until the game is over, that the fan will realize what they have just been witness to. They will be extremely disappointed, even sad, that it is over wishing it could have gone on longer, but in complete awe of the pitcher and his accomplishment, and feeling extremely lucky to have been a part of it.
Derek, in the game of life you have just completed a perfect game and we were each fortunate enough to be your fans. Rare has a man gone through life as you did.
Derek Richard Valentino was born on March 5, 1970. The early innings of Derek’s life saw a little brother Keith arrive who Derek went on to beat up on a daily basis. Derek’s world was a man’s world as he was being raised by his dad, better known as “Pops” to most of us. As a young child he had an unfortunate incident where the doctor prescribed ear drops for his eyes which led to a lifetime of bad vision and glasses. Let’s be honest, after all Derek would be, he was well suited for glasses with the ample size ears God had given him. As kids we may have once or twice busted on him for his dark glasses or his grandiose ears. I know for sure his ears continued to be a favorite topic among coworkers at the post office. One just this week shared with Michele that at a recent BBQ when Derek was less than successful with the hoola hoop around his waist, a suggestion was made to try it around his ears. And I am sure his ears came up once or twice during Tuesday breakfasts at Mena’s …right Iggy and Mark.
All the Folcroft boys will remember Pops was a disabled war veteran and had the DAV tags on his car. This confused poor Derek who thought these were his initials and would have sworn his middle name was Anthony for years. As a child he was not only easily confused but also directionally challenged. Andrea remembers when her mom babysat him, Derek refused to walk home along with her as her mom had ordered. Derek ended up lost, trotting around the neighborhood for a period of time and then promptly put in the corner as punishment upon his eventual arrival. Maybe he had vertigo long before we even knew!
The middle innings of Derek’s life brought exciting new challenges with middle school and high school. From afar it was easy to see that Derek was growing into a kind, gentle, caring and giving human being, soft spoken and unassuming. After all Derek’s house was always open to everyone and each day he would patiently wait for Wendy to walk her home from the bus. He never complained, had a huge heart, and was very quiet in large groups. Not so though when he was with his small group of friends. Actually once you got to know him, you quickly realized that he was one of the fiercest competitors that you will ever know. A quote I came across by Jackie Robinson describes Derek perfectly. “It kills me to lose. If I’m a troublemaker, and I don’t think that my temper makes me one, then it’s because I can’t stand losing. That’s the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first.” I believe this was the true reason Derek became a very special friend to me and the boys. Whether it was techno bowl or RBI video game tournaments, wiffle ball behind his house, tennis ball or roller hockey at Delcroft, milk crate basketball down his basement, rough touch football games, basketball games that sometimes lasted until wee hours of the morning, mud football in his front yard which caused poor Pops to go without grass for years, fantasy football, poker with the boys or board games with his buddies and sons, it didn’t matter what Derek played, he would do everything he could to see his team win. His competitive nature started young as he would race Keith to see who could finish dinner first or get down the street the fastest. Derek did not like to lose. I dare one of his buddies to try to remember one time at Delcroft that Derek didn’t argue against having Chung on his tennis ball team. He was a gunner in basketball…anyone on the court with him knew that Derek never passed up a shot so you if you gave him the ball you were not getting it back. Just last summer, Nick was on the receiving end of Derek’s tennis racquet after Neil and Derek lost to Nick and his brother, Tony. He was so competitive that he was recently considering holding tryouts among his friends for a tennis ball team so he could challenge his son Ryan and his friends.
Even when arguing about his successes, Derek would remain his quiet, unassuming self. John Kealy remembers a late night argument that took place the summer after the freshman EDCO baseball season. Nick and Derek began differing as to who had a better season as pitcher. John recalls watching as Nick, who was surely confident in his superiority to his friend, supplying Derek with every imaginable statistic to support his claim until he was red in the face and had used his every last breath. Derek just sat quietly waiting for Nick to exhaust his last ounce of energy and then Derek took a sip of beer and in his driest fashion asked Nick, “What was your record?” Of course the entire room took a fit of laughter as Derek had stolen the show with four simple words.
Now some of you may be surprised by this but Derek was even known to bend the rules at times to see that him or his team came out on the right side of the contest. Yes, some would say even cheat. As a matter of fact my children affectionately referred to him as “Cheater” every time they saw him for years. You see he entered into a Candyland contest with them and while most of us parents if we get too far ahead would somehow purposely draw the gingerbread card that brings us back near start, this was Derek and when he fell behind he searched the pile for Queen Frostine which propelled him to the very end. My young daughters were appalled to find out that an adult would cheat at Candyland and dubbed him with the doting nickname. At a recent Monopoly game with Derek and his boys, Nick commented there is no way humanly possibly someone could have had the success Ryan did and now Nick is researching the possibility of a heretic cheating gene.
Besides his competitive nature, the other thing about Derek you would quickly come to know is his dry sense of humor. He loved to have a good time and rarely could you engage in a conversation without quickly laughing at him or with him. He was a goofy simpleton that rarely took anything too seriously and we would have it no other way. One of my favorite experiences with Derek was back when he worked at the Spectrum Showcase store at the mall. They were running a contest with the grand prize being a trip for two to the NHL all star game in Canada. Derek could not enter himself but he would enter all his buddies’ names over and over again. I was selected as the winner and off to Montreal Derek and I went. As part of the prize we stayed at the players’ hotel and entered and exited with them. As most of you know, in Canada hockey players are God like and kids come in bunches with the hopes of getting an autograph. Well it didn’t take Derek too long to figure out how cool it would be if we could sign autographs as well. So with his ten cent bic roller pen that barely wrote on paper, we started defacing Canadian children’s property with our signatures. I still remember one kid asking Derek, “ Hey, who are you anyway?” and him dryly replying, “I’m Derek Valentino, a rookie from Philly.” He thought he was so funny imitating these players and quite frankly so did I. And which of his coworkers doesn’t remember the pink flamingo hostage situation or how the relay bags suddenly became mysteriously heavy for a couple of weeks?
Derek also had a healthy appetite. He was forever looking for free food and you were in trouble if poker was being held at your house because if he lost, Derek proceeded to eat whatever he could find to at least get value out of the trip. His plate was always licked clean at Mena’s leaving his coworkers to ponder if Michele even needed a dishwasher. One comical story that Stack recalls is the night of Derek’s 21st birthday. Michele had invited family over for the occasion but Derek decided to make a pit stop at Cheecho’s to have a few beers with Stack. This was long before cell phones and by the time Stack dropped Derek off, everyone had gone. Since Derek was never a big drinker and Stack was a world class champion, a few beers had left him feeling pretty good. The way Derek tells it, as Michele was beating him over the head with a 2 foot hoagie and the pieces were bouncing off, Derek was attempting to eat them.
Derek’s late innings were probably his proudest. This is when he became a husband and father. As Sam said, “People are not born into greatness. They grow into it. Derek grew into being a great husband, a great father, a great man.”
Some might say that a perfect game pitcher not only must be at his best, but he needs a great team behind him. There is typically that one player who makes an unbelievable play that he may not make again given 100 more opportunities. In Don Larsen’s perfect game during the World Series, Yankee center fielder Mickey Mantle made a spectacular over the shoulder grab that some baseball historians have dubbed “the catch”. Derek’s Mickey Mantle was without a doubt Michele. For me personally, Derek represented two stages of life- the first being the young kid I met in middle school that went on to be my teammate and very best friend and the second a young man who would eventually fall in love and marry a very special young lady whom I have known since I was a wee little boy. That special lady was Michele Goss. Now Michele is also quiet and unassuming in her own right. Definitely one of the more quiet of the Gosses who grew up in the house two doors down from me. So it only seemed fitting that when she became manager of the baseball team and Derek was the star pitcher, this relationship was destined to take off and take off it did culminating with marriage and two beautiful children. So here I had my very close childhood friend, Michele, and a best friend, Derek, turning into high school sweethearts right before my eyes. Although it was nice to see, it also posed problems for me. One of which was these two lovebirds couldn’t stop talking on the phone. So whenever me and the boys needed our fill of a competitive athletic event or video game marathon, we could never get a hold of Derek. I know it will be difficult for the present day teenagers to comprehend but back when we were in high school, before cell phones, if you called a buddy’s house and they were on the phone, you got what is called a busy signal and your only course of action was to try over and over and over again until the line was free. Luckily the Gosses had invested in call waiting, which was a relatively new piece of technology at the time. So we quickly found ourselves having to be extra nice to Michele and calling her to gain permission for Derek to come out and play or call us when he was done talking to her. Overall, it was a neat dynamic seeing two people I cared for very much, ending up caring for each other even a whole lot more.
As most of you know very early in my life, God blessed me with a beautiful daughter. After her birth Derek declared he would not have any daughters, that he was going to be the father to two sons just like his dad. By the time Derek and Michele married, I had three little girls. Now back then you actually had to wait nine months to find out whether you would need blue or pink for your nursery. But Derek confidently predicted that he would no doubtedly have a son arriving in October. Sure enough on October 24, 1992 I received the phone call triumphantly announcing the arrival of Ryan Michael Valentino. And of course along with the details of the birth, I had to endure Derek’s razzing of how much stronger his Y sperm were than mine and how he would never make a girl.
The following year saw another daughter arrive for me and the harassment continued. So it was with great pleasure I received the news of a forecast of a girl when Derek and Michele returned from her ultrasound with her 2nd pregnancy. Technology was improving and now they could give you like a 95% accurate prediction. Even with Michele preparing the house for a daughter, Derek continued to anticipate a second son. It got to a point where we were seriously concerned that his babbling about another son would begin to upset Michele. Then one day in early February, my wife received a call triumphantly announcing the arrival of Jordan Daniel Valentino. While Kathie scolded him and told him enough was enough, Derek just quietly encouraged us to come check the diaper.
After seeing him with Andrea’s daughter Kristen though, Michele thinks he would have been just fine with a little girl.
Derek loved being a dad and was so proud of his boys. His competitive nature stayed with him and as far as being a dad, he strived to be the best. One of his favorite pastimes was fishing with his boys and his brother. As a matter of fact, each year on the anniversary of his dad’s death, they would go out to remember Pops.
Michele shared that Derek thought that 43 was the age they could really begin living life together. After all by then Ryan would be half way through college and Jordan would be 18. One may say they have now been unfairly robbed of that time. Michele, some people live an entire lifetime and never have for one day the love you and Derek shared for 23 years. I once heard a story where a man had lost his 17 year old adopted son to juvenile diabetes. His continual question to God was, “why take him so young?” Nothing comforted the man until a friend once proposed, “If God had come to you 17 years ago and said, ‘I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you a beautiful, wonderful, happy, healthy son but you can only have him for 17 years would you have made the deal?” The father knew his only possible answer was “in a heartbeat!”
So I challenge everyone here today, “If God had come to us a number of years ago and proposed Derek would enter our lives as a brother, friend, coworker, teammate, coach, husband or father but you knew you would have to let him go long before you were ready, would you have taken the deal?” I think we all would have.
When remembering a big game against Glen Mills, Joe Walsh commented that when he was on a team with him, Derek made him a better player. I agree Joe and will take it a step farther. Knowing Derek made us a better friend, a better coach, a better coworker, a better husband, a better father.
As his final out in the ninth inning, Derek died doing something he loved. Pope Paul VI once said,
Somebody should tell us,
Right at the beginning of our lives,
That we are dying.
Then we might live life to the limit,
Every minute of every day.
Do it! I say.
Whatever you want to do, do it now!
There are only so many tomorrows.

Some how Derek knew this. Derek lived life to the fullest. Whatever he did, whether it was sports, video games, board games, love or parenting, he did with a passion. Those in the triathlon community commented that Derek was one of them before he even got his feet wet last Saturday morning. No, Derek did not win, as we all know he tragically never even finished, yet his competitors feel honored because he choose to be involved with them. They admired him for his passion for life, not for a win. Many would consider dying at age 40 a loss for Derek, but a wise man named Abraham Lincoln once said, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
Derek was such a private guy, he would be shocked at all the attention his passing has gotten. I was thinking this as I saw his picture on the screen of the evening news. I know two things he would be thinking for sure- 1st….somehow all this attention must be Michele’s fault as everything was always her fault and 2nd ….and to all of us he would be saying after today stop your tears and live life to the fullest for you don’t know when you will be joining me.
I know Michele and the boys, it is difficult right now to picture a life without Derek but he will forever be with you in your hearts and closely watching from above. I know his message to you guys would be from Led Zeppelin’s song “Thank You”:
And so today, my world it smiles
Your hand in mine, we walk the miles
Thanks to you it will all be done
For you to me are the only one
Happiness-no more be sad
Happiness-I’m glad

And if the sun refused to shine
I will still be loving you
When mountains crumble to the sea
There will still be you and me.

So it is with this I say Mr. Mailman, Coach Valentino, Uncle Derek, Rudy, Derek, Daddy we love you and although we will probably question forever why we had to lose you so soon, we thank God for having given you to us. We will never forget the love, joy and endless laughter you brought to our lives. There is not a day that will pass that we won’t miss you. Now go, relax, for I am sure God is in a club box up there at a baseball field with Coach G at his side giving the thumbs up, tapping the empty seat next to him saying, “Well done, Rudy, not many enter with a perfect game. Come, sit and put that goofy grin on your face as we will look down and laugh at them together.”