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I’m in absolute disgust about how the Mets fired Willie so I want to compliment the media for bashing the way that the Mets fired Willie. I was half asleep and heard it around 3:30 a.m. on WFAN. I turned my laptop on and wrote about it as I was half asleep. Now that I’m awake, I’m going to continue to express myself today. I’m glad to see that the media sees it as I see it because usually that isn’t the case.
Newsday:
Mets’ handling of Willie cowardly - Jim Baumbach wrote…
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.
Wilpons are worst owners in town - Wallace Matthews wrote…
As a result, The Wilpons today assume sole possession of the title, “Worst Sports Owners in Town,” which is quite an accomplishment considering this town also boasts Charles Wang, Woody Johnson, the long-running reality show known as “The Steinbrenners,” and everyone’s favorites, Dolan & Son.
But not even James Dolan, the poster child for bad ownership, would have handled this as badly as the Mets, or more correctly, The Wilpons, did. From a personal standpoint, his worst crime was making Don Chaney drive to Westchester to run a Knicks’ practice session before wielding the axe. That hardly compares with schlepping a manager and two doomed coaches across the country on a red-eye flight following a doubleheader, only to send them all back again, jobless, less than a day later.
Like him or not, Willie’s firing was brutal - Barbara Barker wrote…
Yet, some firings are more vicious than others. And what the Mets did to Willie Randolph sometime before 3:14 this morning breaks the viciousness meter. And, no matter what you felt about Randolph as a manger, it also breaks your heart.
You can debate all you want whether Randolph deserved to be fired, but there’s no doubt he deserved better than this. He deserved better than to be strung out for weeks, flown 3,000 miles to the West Coast, only to get the ax in a strange hotel only hours after his team beat the California Angels.
New York Daily News:
Mets an utter disgrace for handling of Willie Randolph’s firing - Bill Madden wrote…
And in the history of New York baseball, there has not been a more cowardly, indecent, undignified or ill-conceived firing of a manager. Only the Mets - these Mets who have somehow lost their dignity since Fred Wilpon has chosen to drift further and further into the background - could embarrass themselves like this, firing Randolph, Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto (and just what exactly did he do?) in their hotel rooms in Costa Mesa, Calif., and communicated by e-mail to the beat writers at 3 a.m. Eastern time.
Firing them, after having them fly all the way to the West Coast for a game against the LA Angels, a game which they won, when, clearly, they had made this decision days ago. GM Omar Minaya was the one who executed the firing - while refusing comment - but make no mistake, he was just the messenger. Jeff Wilpon and Tony Bernazard were the ones who really wanted Randolph fired. They just couldn’t figure out how, where or when to do it in order to best lessen the media fallout, and Minaya couldn’t help them.
New York Post:
MIDNIGHT MASSACRE AN AMAZIN’ ACT OF COWARDICE - Mike Vaccaro wrote…
Maybe that seems a simple proclamation. Maybe you think everyone knows about the Internet. Well, the men who run the Mets are quite obviously simple men, and sinister men, cowards cloaked in “no comments,” who have seen the way their baseball team has performed this year obviously decided: People don’t just need to be fired.
They need to be humiliated.
What a crowd, these bums are, all of them, from the Wilpons at the top to Omar Minaya down below, all of them who conspired to botch this firing worse than any firing has ever been botched. Ever. You wouldn’t trust these guys to run a 7-11, let alone a National League baseball team. What a joke. What a cowardly, dastardly joke.
A midnight massacre.
A 3 a.m. thrashing.
Disgraceful. Utterly, completely, disgraceful.
The Star-Ledger:
Graziano: Randolph’s Firing Is a Joke - Just Like the Mets - Dan Graziano wrote…
Willie Randolph is certainly devastated this morning. His first big chance at the job he dreamed of for so long has ended in ignominy. Less than two years after he came within one inning of the World Series, he is fired, and must be wondering if he’ll ever get another chance to manage in the major leagues.
But while Randolph likely can’t take this perspective, he’s well rid of the Mets and the Wilpons, who run their organization so poorly it’s hard to imagine any manager succeeding as long as they’re in charge of it.
When you’re around the Mets all the time, your neck starts to hurt because you shake your head so much. Every day, the evidence of organization-wide incompetence hits you right in the face.
I was never a fan of Willie’s growing up because I’m not a Yankee fan. I didn’t really care one way or the other when he became the manager of the Mets. Based on his record, he has the second best winning percentage in the history of the Mets franchise. He handles himself with class, and the Mets showed him none. This is not the first time the Mets have done something like this, it always happens like this. Major League Baseball handles themselves poorly as well. The combination of the two have built up in me over the years. When that happens, I tend to back off little by little as a fan. It’s a shame because it makes it harder for me to love the game and love the Mets. It is the exact opposite with the NFL and the Giants. The Mara family has more class than any other owners in the NFL so my love for them grows and grows regardless of the record each season. The Mets are an embarrasement of an organization.
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I’ve read a bunch of articles about everyone thinks that the Mets are doing the right thing by holding back Johan Santana until Friday night against the Yankees. I strongly disagree with this concept, and I can care less what the Mets do in the interleague games. The Mets need to win as many interleague games as possible, but not as much as they need to win division games and NL games. The Mets make sure that their aces face the Yankees every year. Last season, if they lost one more game against the Yankees and won one more game in their division then they would’ve won the NL East and played in the Playoffs. The Mets are playing a four-game series against the Nationals right now. They lost one already so they need to slam the door on the Nats. So I believe Santana should remain in his normal spot. Should New York bragging rights cost the Mets the division title?
