Willie Randolph writes about his time with the Mets and how he feels about getting fired. It's pretty boring. I wish I could say he is a better writer than he was a manager, but it wouldn't be true.
Honestly, I really don't feel that bad for him. The Mets missed the playoffs by one game in 2007, and I have to think that Willie's stubbornness and obstinacy was a leading cause of that. If he would have stopped using Guillermo Mota in every high-leverage spot or plugging the terrible Shawn Green into the lineup every day, the Mets would have won a few more games.
Sorry, Willie. All managers are fired unjustly. But I think your millions of dollars should be enough to comfort you. Frankly, I was tired-- all of us were tired-- of hearing the same stupid talk about how your gut told you this and that, and how this bad player or the other is "one of your guys," and how the team just needs to get into "a nice little rhythm."
I could have included a picture with this post, but I am tired of looking at the man. What makes him so special, that he should get to manage the Mets?
What's unjust is that such an unqualified person was able to lord over the team for so long. Unjust, I tell you. That it will happen again and be that way for the foreseeable future is upsetting, but not defeating. I won't give up hope that someday the Mets will have a manager (and a general manager) who knows what he is doing. Perhaps that manager and general manager will be the same person. Perhaps he will wear a suit in the dugout. I think that's how it should be.
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11 comments:
'Perhaps he will wear a suit in the dugout.'
Connie Mack is dead and I imagine his DNA will be quite expensive when cloning becomes rampant.
Emad
It did offer even more evidence of how poorly the decision was handled though.
The whole passage on how Omar reassured him before they got on the plane made me nauseous. Omar needed to sack up and fire him like a man, not hide in his hotel room like Ben Stiller's character in Dodgeball (which is how I prefer to imagine how it went down). And yes, I made a "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" reference. Lock me up.
Great movie.
And I agree.
I can only imagine Omar coming out of the bathroom as Willie enters: "Sorry, Willie, I've been having some digestion problems."
is it becoming one of the greatest sports cliches of our team when managers tell us.. "we need to find our rhythm." ??
i'd much rather have a guy say something like... "we need to stop running endy chavez out there."
Funny, Connie Mack was the first person I thought of too. Well, I think he is the only manager to be manage with a suite right? So i guess there goes my logic.
Omar shows flashes of getting it sometimes. He just does not know how to build a bullpen.....ok and a bench too. However, he has picked up some good productive bench players during his tenure, Gotay, Stache, Chavez(defensive sub allstar). Good news is we hired Kryvsky as a scout. Gotta love the Twins guy coming in to our scouting dept.
-coolpapabell
Just for the hell of it (and sure, I was bored) I read all your comments from last year, John, and the more and more I read, the more and more I think this guy shouldn't have been hired in the first place. The veteran worship was always nauseating, and I'd forgotten about LoDuca dictating when he would play. He was a goddamn pushover. And that article from last year from the USS Mariner about vets was brilliant. Entitlement is definitely the word for it. Good fucking riddance to Randolph; and no, I don't wish him well.
I wish Randolph well. He was a bad manager, not an evil person.
Funny how someone brought up Gotay in Omar's defense. He traded Keppinger for Gotay if recall correctly. It is, in my view, more of a severe indictment of Omar than the Bannister trade for which he routinely gets flack. Stache's 2006 was a last gasp of productivity for a declining player who never was all that to begin with, save for phenomenal defense. It was a lucky fluke. The fact that Omar tried to make his '08 option vest and then resigned him for a minor league deal is more indicative of the way Omar works, as it is something that he does that is entirely consistent with his MO and which makes all rational people scratch their heads and do Conan O'Brien's G.W. Bush impression.
Jesus Flores: .303/.370/.520/
Fire. Omar. Now.
I will clarify my statement only to this extent (I feel like I'm talking to Tom Glavine): I don't wish Willie well in his future baseball employment (his personal life is none of my concern). He will probably get another managing job, whether he really deserves one or not. Time served and/or "being a hard worker" does not necessarily a good manager make. Time will tell if Willie actually learned anything from this experience. I personally doubt it, but at least he'll be someone else's problem at that point.
Jesus Flores: .303/.370/.520/
Fire. Omar. Now.
Jesus Flores 2007 (79 games): .244/.310/.361
Not. That. Huge. A. Deal.
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