FanNation - The Republic of Sport

6/17/08

With a chance to explain himself before the huddled masses of the New York and National media out in Anaheim California, Omar Minaya revealed his true colors, and they start with a bright shade of red in the middle of his face.

Looking uncomfortable, disingenuous and quite frankly, pretty flustered, the General Manager of the New York Mets jumped from one excuse to the next in justifying the decision and the process in which the decision was made to relieve Willie Randolph of his managerial responsibilities.

Minaya stated that the decision had ultimately been made Monday morning and that because Omar was essentially tired of being asked repeatedly whether or not Willie was going to be managing for the duration of the season, he gave a very peculiar response in saying that the atmosphere in Queens over the weekend was the determining factor.

Reading between the lines, which isn't hard to do when Minaya speaks, that seems to me as though he allowed the media to dictate or at least partially dictate his decision making process, if you are willing to be naive enough in believing Omar when he says this decision was completely his.

When he wasn't talking about how much he loves Willie, and how Willie was his hire, Minaya seemed to jump around trying to pinpoint the exact moment in which the decision had been made, but constantly made reference to the media doing a good job in tracking down it's "sources" to reveal Minaya's thought process, at which point Omar realized that it was unfair to the team and to Willie that the constant speculation overshadow the business at hand which should have been winning baseball games.

Minaya, at least from my point of view, never came across as genuine or sincere, but gave me the feeling that deep down in his gut, this decision was one that he didn't make on his own, and wasn't a decision that was made with his heart fully invested in it. 

Of course that would also seem to conflict with the new ideology that Minaya doesn't have a heart, considering the fact that if this was his decision to be made, he sent Willie and all of his coaches across the country, had them work and actually win a game only to call them back to their hotel and dismiss them thereafter.

Minaya then really seemed to lose his audience when he was asked about his relationship with Manny Acta, and went off talking about how he likes to gives hugs, and mingle with the managers and general managers of opposing teams, going as far as talking about when Bobby Cox comes into town he knows his secret hideout within Shea Stadium and is able to track him down, all while laughing at himself and failing to draw any sort of rise from his crowd.

He also said that had he elected to keep Willie and the team lost 15 games in a row he would have been resigned to fire Willie, and in doing so only placed more embarrassment upon himself and the organization.

One of the great articles put out today regarding this entire situation was discussing the Wilpon's have taken the reigns as the worst owners in New York, and it makes you wonder how in fact they were able to upstage the Steinbrenner's and the Dolan's.

Chew on this for a moment- Isiah Thomas was more worthy of being fired than perhaps anybody holding any job in the history of mankind, yet was treated better.  How can that be explained?  Randolph wasn't without flaws and once again, whether or not he deserved to lose his job isn't the issue at hand, because most people agree that he should have, but the manner in which the organization handled it could not have been worse.

Perhaps the most defining in all of this was seeing Willie leaving his hotel and taking only a handful of quick questions, hearing the heartbreak and pain in his voice was tough to swallow because anybody who follows this team knows that Willie cares a lot, has a lot of pride, and took this very personally.  While he may not have been a great manager, and made some mistakes- most notably the comments he made a few weeks back about bringing race into the conversation about the criticism he was taking- he was a a man with dignity and pride whose downfall will inevitably be his inability to lead in such a way that the veterans on this club step up and respond in such a way that the team could have achieved.

In response to those who are telling Mets fans not to feel bad for Willie because of the 4 and half million dollars hes still guaranteed, I would say that this is about more than money, and while I don't think Willie is going to have any trouble feeding his children anytime soon, this is about the humiliation of man that was unnecessary and very avoidable. 

The Mets have proven to be nothing more than three ring circus with Minaya taking center stage today and coming off a clown, trying to laugh off one of the biggest decisions in franchise history, and how badly it was handled, and in doing so, have become the laughing stock of baseball, and deservedly so.

Whether it's the mess on the field or the catastrophe off of it, this team has some serious problems that may be unfixable unless Minaya and management identify the real problem, which of course is the players, and begin to cut their losses, starting perhaps with the likes of Carlos Delgado, who seems to be the poster boy among the players for the lack of passion, toughness and accountability, and I'm among those who agree that Delgado needs to be among the first roster casualties for the teams brass to regain any shred of respect from their fan base.

Is Jerry Manuel the answer?  We won't know for some time, but the interim tag on his new job tells you all you need to know, and that would be that Manuel has been placed into a winless situation, because short of a miraculous playoff run, this circus will be searching for a new master of ceremonies at season's end, and a new managerial search will be in works.

In addition, should things not turn around by season's end, and the team hasn't really given us any reason to believe they will, Minaya may be a clown looking for a new audience to entertain.