A quarter-century later, Bobby Valentine remembers the smell.Valentine was leading a contingent of New York Mets to Ground Zero in the days after 9/11. Walking through shin-deep soot, he and his players went through an experience that Todd Zeile said “changed everything.”“The smells live on probably with all of us forever,” Valentine said last week over the phone. “It will stay with me forever.”On Saturday, Valentine will be inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame along with Lee Mazzilli. That enshrinement is predicated on what Valentine, 76, was able to do in the dugout for the Mets, at the helm of one of the most successful and entertaining periods in club history. He managed the third-most games and won the third-most games in franchise history; his winning percentage (.534) ranks fourth. He managed 24 postseason games for the Mets, more than anyone else.Valentine managed with what his admirers would call flair and his detractors bravado (and few in the sport’s history have been as adept at creating admirers and detractors in equal measure as Valentine). But for all his hijinks — one memorable example will be celebrated Friday with “Bobby Valentine Mustache Disguise Night” — there is one group of people who think of Valentine in the most serious and praiseworthy terms.First responders.“You want to talk about a good leader? People follow a good leader, and Bobby set the example,” said Sal Cassano, New York City’s fire commissioner from 2010 through 2014. “He could have been nice, he could have been walking around and gladhanding everybody, but he was loading trucks. And so many people followed him because of that.”Bobby Valentine and Braves manager Bobby Cox embrace during a pregame ceremony before the first baseball game in New York since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Matt Campbell / Getty Images)A significant part of Valentine’s long-term legacy with the Mets is what he did the week baseball went dark in 2001. Following the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, Shea Stadium was a supplies staging ground for first responders, and Valentine spearheaded the involvement of the Mets themselves.