TransitGuy Posted June 17, 2008 Share #1 Posted June 17, 2008 Newsday.com Mets' handling of Willie cowardly Jim Baumbach 8:13 AM EDT, June 17, 2008 Cowards. That's what the Mets upper management has become. Huge cowards who care more about appearance, public relations and their own personal reputations than the performance of their team. Fire your manager via a mass e-mail to the media at 3:11 a.m.? Yuck. You know what this reeks of? Someone made this decision days ago and agonized for hours on how to announce it to the public in the best way possible to keep the pressure off their own self. Is it Omar Minaya or is it Jeff Wilpon? It's one of the two. Today, we see firsthand Corporate America joining hands with a Major League Baseball team, 21st-century style. It used to be that teams did firings and announced negative news on Fridays, because the Saturday newspaper is the smallest and least read by the people who buy their tickets and paraphernalia. But in this day and age where news hits the Internet in minutes and the news cycle is endless, the Friday bad news game is meaningless. So what do the Mets do? They wait until their team heads to the West Coast, wait until their fans are in bed, wait until Randolph returns to the hotel and fire him then. This is not about whether this was the right move. Randolph probably deserves to get fired based on how much this team has under-performed for the past year-plus. But Randolph deserved better than how the Mets handled this, and so did the players and the fans. There is no defending the Mets management today. They screwed this up royally, and it's hard not to think they mishandled this mess for the past week simply to find the best way to make themselves look better. We don't know who to specifically point the blame to, but we will soon. Omar Minaya has never fired a manager before this morning, and he will be meeting with reporters at 5 p.m. eastern time to explain this. Forget about why Randolph was fired. The first question he'll have to answer why it was handled like this. Did the Mets know they were going to fire Randolph this past weekend? And did they intentionally wait for the team to head West to get away from their own fans and to go to a place where there will be five times fewer reporters? And why the ridiculous timing? Here's the sick part: By announcing at 3 a.m., the Mets undoubtedly figured they'd just miss the last deadlines for New York City newspapers, meaning there would be another 24 hours before the next day's newspaper is published. So this way maybe something else can happen in the world and they won't have to see their manager's firing plastered all over the back pages, because it's day-old news. And if you're a Mets fan, that should make you sick. Because that means they care about their image more than their performance. And what about Randolph?As the Mets upper management looked for ways this weekend to do this firing in a manner that served one purpose -- keeping the blood away from their expensive suits -- they in the process somehow managed to make Randolph into a bit of a sympathetic figure to their own fans. On Friday every Mets fan wanted Randolph fired, and that probably hasn't changed. But I got the sense watching Sunday's game that Mets fans weren't so eager to boo Randolph anymore, because Randolph knew he was a goner and so did the fans. It was almost as if they felt for him, maybe even respected the way he handled himself at a time when many others might have melted under his own impending doom. Any way you look at it, Randolph deserved better than being told he was fired at 3 in the morning Eastern time --- midnight West Coast time -- after a win over the Angels that came after a West Coast flight. Randolph didn't know he was fired until he came back to the team hotel after the win. Minaya was waiting for him to deliver the bad news at a place there was no reporters, no Mets fans, no Jeff Wilpon. Just as they designed it. What cowards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pablo M 201 Posted June 17, 2008 Share #2 Posted June 17, 2008 I knew this was coming by not now. The heads of the Mets are definately cowards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metsfan Posted June 17, 2008 Share #3 Posted June 17, 2008 He left whatshisname in on that pivotal game last sept 30 that lost them the whole thing. Leaving pitchers in too long has been the main reason the mets having done poorly in most of their games. The only shining spot of the season so far was the arse whoopin they handed the yanks. - Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattTrain Posted June 17, 2008 Share #4 Posted June 17, 2008 Whoever thinks that leaving a baseball manager in the ropes and uncertainty such as Willie Randolph of the Mets is a good idea, you are totally wrong! The head of the Mets management is to blame for all this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Locomotion69 Posted June 17, 2008 Share #5 Posted June 17, 2008 Whoever thinks that leaving a baseball manager in the ropes and uncertainty such as Willie Randolph of the Mets is a good idea, you are totally wrong! The head of the Mets management is to blame for all this! What a great day to be a Mets fan. Woohoo! Now at least we have some hope which we never had under Willie. I don't feel sorry for the way that he was fired,deal with it. He is a multi-millionaire. 12 TIMES he was turned down for managers jobs in the major leagues. The Mets did him a favor,even gave him a contract extension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubwayGuy Posted June 17, 2008 Share #6 Posted June 17, 2008 What a great day to be a Mets fan. Woohoo! Now at least we have some hope which we never had under Willie. I don't feel sorry for the way that he was fired,deal with it. He is a multi-millionaire. 12 TIMES he was turned down for managers jobs in the major leagues. The Mets did him a favor,even gave him a contract extension. Hey over in Yankee land we will be glad to take him back in any kind of capacity we can come up with... Just will go to show when Jerry Manuel inevitably struggles that the Mets' struggles were solely the fault of OMAR MINAYA and by firing Randolph all he has done is get rid of the one buffer that would've protected him, so now its all eyes on him for assembling a very flawed team and thinking it was something it wasn't... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trainfan22 Posted June 17, 2008 Share #7 Posted June 17, 2008 Willie should have never been fired. Its omar fault that he put toghter a bad team. Don't get me worng there are a lot of good players on the mets. Like reyes whght santana the two caros just to name a few. but he signed to many old guys like alou and marinez. Its not willie fault its the GM fault. He should have gotten younger players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TransitGuy Posted June 18, 2008 Author Share #8 Posted June 18, 2008 Honestly some part of the blame does have to go to Willie BUT not all of it. Majority of the blame should be placed on the players and Omar Minaya. The Mets have the 3rd highest payroll in the league and every single player is cold in terms of production (with the exception of Church but he's on the DL). Reyes has been in some weird funk since the second half of last year. Delgado is just doing nothing in my book, Beltran too with the exception of the final game with Willie. There really needs to big some big shakeup or something needs to happen or this is just going to get worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R160 Posted June 19, 2008 Share #9 Posted June 19, 2008 This was handled VERY poorly by the mets organization and omar lied thruought the ENTIRE press conference. another thing to not is that willie was fired @ 11:00 in california or whereever they were, which made it 3:00 here...so those of you who are upset about the time, there you go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broad St. Belle Posted June 20, 2008 Share #10 Posted June 20, 2008 Did anybody read this??: Met fan squawks about Willie Randolph firing, sends Wilpons chickens BY Edgar Sandoval DAILY NEWS WRITER Wednesday, June 18th 2008, 7:35 PM Die-hard Mets fan Martin Silver cried fowl Wednesday over the team's way-past-midnight massacre of manager Willie Randolph. The season ticket holder sent by FedEx five whole chickens to the Amazin's owner Fred Wilpon to dramatize his displeasure over the classless firing. "They are chickens for doing this, the way they did it," Martin said. "I decided sending chickens was the best thing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pablo M 201 Posted June 20, 2008 Share #11 Posted June 20, 2008 Now thats funny! Thats a good way to get a statement through. Better than posting online pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bushwick Bill Posted June 20, 2008 Share #12 Posted June 20, 2008 The Mets organization has shown their true colors. They've shown how classless they really can get. We'll see Willie back in action very soon. Bill (NYCT) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7LineFan Posted June 21, 2008 Share #13 Posted June 21, 2008 I just read the Daily News today and it had some special written by Willie himself. He told Minaya not to send him to Anaheim if he was gonna get fired. Poor management. And after a win too! And Minaya's parting "gift" was the part of the contract that prevents Willie from badmouthing the Mets if he wanted the rest of his pay. Lovely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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