Bobby Valentine elaborated even more regarding his much-publicized conversation with Josh Beckett. (AP)

The most publicized private conversation in recent Red Sox history just got a little more public.

Wednesday, at the baseball winter meetings, new manager Bobby Valentine explained to a gathering of media that he had talked to Josh Beckett, but the pitcher had requested the conversation remain private. But then Valentine went to describe how Beckett was “pissed off” during the phone call.

“I did reach out to Josh, and he didn’t want me to say anything so I’m not going to say anything other than after he got through telling me how pissed off he was, we had a really good conversation,” said Valentine. “I’m not going to say anything about it.”

Well, while speaking at the “Christmas at Fenway” event on WEEI Saturday afternoon, Valentine reiterated that the Beckett conversation was supposed to be private, but once again ended up with even less secrecy then before.

As Valentine explained it, the impetus for Beckett’s ire stemmed from Valentine’s criticism of the pitcher’s deliberate pace in between pitches. But, according to the manager, Beckett actually had more of an issue with Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long, who the hurler had been told was complaining the most vociferously about the Sox’ pitcher’s pace of game.

“He told me not to talk about the conversation so I’m not going to talk about the conversation,” Valentine said. “But I’ll talk about the length of the conversation. It was 20 minutes maybe a little more. But the first two sentences were, ‘Oh, by the way, I was really pissed off at what you said,’ and I said, ‘Let’s get that out of the way,’ and I said, ‘OK, that’s out of the way,’ and we talked about everything else. That was kind of the extent for his dislike of what I said.

“I’ll say this, because it’s apropos and he won’t mind, he felt at the time, and probably correctly so, he was dominating the Yankees. I mean he was totally dominating them when he pitched and one of the things that was mentioned from across the field was mentioned by Kevin Long, according to him. I didn’t remember this as an ESPN announcer, but Kevin Long started complaining about him talking too long. And he felt, why don’t I take long and if they don’t like it, then that’s exactly what I want to do. Whatever they don’t like, and what makes them uncomfortable, makes them unsuccessful. And we at ESPN fell into the Kevin Long strategy of trying to reverse his success. So I get it. Maybe I did. That’s where it was a frenzy and it led to watching the game and I had read or heard what Kevin had said and I was reiterating it.”

There is no doubt that Beckett was very upset over Long’s criticism of his approach between pitches, openly questioning the hitting coach in the Red Sox clubhouse during a series in Kansas City.

Beckett came under criticism from Long — and Valentine — after a 4-hour, 15-minute, August 7 game between the Red Sox and Yankees. Then-Red Sox manager Terry Francona said he ensured Major League Baseball that he would broach the matter with Beckett. But when asked about it later in the month, Beckett said nobody had talked to him about his approach and he had asked his fielders if the pace was a problem and was told it wasn’t.

To hear the entire interview with Valentine, click here.