As you know by now, the Metropolitans fired Skipper Willie Randolph Tuesday. The Mets brass giving Willie his walking papers should come as no surprise to anyone paying any kind of attention to baseball this year. The Amazin's had the highest payroll in the NL, then added Johan Santana, and still have been stinking up the field pretty much all season long.
Not to be undone by the team, management fired Willie in the middle of the night... while everyone was sleeping, one game into a westcoast series vs. the Angels. So they sent the man on a several hour plane trip already knowing they were about to fire him and did it while the lights were off? Wow. Kudos to GM Omar Minaya and Mets owners, Jeff and Fred Wilpon. You've now trumped the Yankees brass into being the biggest idiots in town. Well I don't know about going that far, but they're now at least in the discussion.
I understand the business side of sports, even though I don't always agree. The Mets were really struggling under Willie"s watch, and management for whatever reason believed that they should be the class of the division (I had them finishing 3rd). Whether it was the forever slumping Carlos Delgado coming up small or their lights-out closer Billy Wagner blowing saves, the losing continued and something had to change. The Skipper is usually the first to go. But the reality is that this team is old and injury-prone; plays with that Gasol-Odom type heart or lack thereof; and just isn't as good as the payroll suggests. This is the Mets doing, not Randolphs. As we all know, even a good Manager can only truly affect the outcome of so many games.
The truth is that the Mets have a bad mix of characters on the team. Lack of player leadership, and it shows in their lackadasical play on the field. They need some firestarters, less Carlos Beltran-types and more Aaron Rowands. This is why they still haven't been able to recover from last seasons collapse, which would have been a better time to give Willie the pink slip.
The bottom line is they definitely owed the man more respect than they gave him. If for nothing else, just for baby-sitting a team overpaid by management with a cast of characters who regularly duck and dodge the media after games and refuse to face the music. In my eyes, Willie should feel relieved about having those giants NY-media lenses off of him. Pan left-to-right, GM Omarr Minaya is up next.
Cold Blooded
They punked out
How you going to fire someone at midnight via email.