The Worst Organization in Baseball?

Willie Randolph, you've just been fired as Met manager. What are you going to do?

"I'm going to Disneyland."

Well, conveniently, all Willie really had to do was walk across the street, because the Mets were playing in Anaheim at the time. But, if he really wanted to go on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Willie would have had to wait until the park opened. Hours later. Because, indeed as well reported, he got fired at midnight ironically after a Met victory over the Angels.

So that means Tuesday, June 17 is officially one of the most embarrassing days ever for a Met fan. For an organization that has had many glorious moments on the field of battle, their front office is traditionally inept. If there is absolutely a worst way to fire a manager or trade a player or make some sort of announcement, you can count on the New York Mets to do it. With fanfare. And, throughout a chain of different owners over the past 46 seasons, the consistency to be assholes is amazingly maintained.

The latest jerks in charge are the now doddering Fred Wilpon, still harboring his man crush on Sandy Koufax, and his shithead son Jeff, who will never be confused with anybody possessing a soupcon of class. The two of them have zero knowledge when it comes to running any sort of professional organization regardless of the business involved. I had a protracted correspondence with Junior several years ago when I questioned why season ticket holders were being forced to buy March exhibition game tickets at regular prices. Jeff's response to me was terse, condescending, and inappropriate. So, it's never a surprise to me when he looks like a jerk. Because he really is one. Oddly enough, the Wilpons allegedly used to make fun of their former partner, Nelson Doubleday, who got a little goofy in his later years and frequently was trying to put his socks on over his shoes. But, even baseline senility can be excused when compared to incompetence and stupidity and a lack of civility. The Fred and Jeff Show has cornered the market in all of that. And I'd like to see where Fred's socks are right now. Whatever the comparison, the Wilpons have managed to do the impossible. They have singlehandedly made the Steinbrenners look like the more level-headed baseball owners in NY.

Okay, in baseball, it's usually the manager that is to be blamed. Indeed, baseball managers are hired to be eventually fired. And it happens to all of them from Joe Torre to Art Howe. Maybe Willie Randolph should have been terminated last September when the Mets collapsed like the Bridge at San Luis Rey. Supposedly, Shithead Jeff never even wanted to hire Willie in the first place, despite the fact that all of his baseball acumen could fill a thimble without spilling a drop. And, with the Mets' lousy start this year, Willie became Dead Manager Walking. He probably knew he was managing the next day only if he found a laundered uniform in his locker. There are allegedly leaks all over the clubhouse and Shithead Jeff uses another front office buffoon, Tony Bernazard, as a conduit to the volatile Latin faction in the clubhouse. The Nixon White House didn't have this many cover-ups. Willie couldn't win no matter what he did. He might as well have bought an apartment on the 100th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Indeed, as are most expelled baseball managers, Willie was the victim of a lousy team composition. And the blame for that can be laid solely on the sombrero of GM Omar Minaya, who now moves up one on the ticket buyers' line to see The Grim Reaper. I've written it here before. Omar has constructed a baseball team version of the Buena Vista Social Club and there's absolutely no balance. You're either too Hispanic or too old or perhaps both. Carlos Ohgodno, from a number of reports, is a complete self-centered jerk and now can only hit a fastball thrown by an arcade machine out in Coney Island. Moises Alou can be counted on for about two hours of play per season as he can literally pull a hamstring by brushing his teeth. Pedro Martinez is a shell of his former monster pitching self, and now he's really nothing more than a clubhouse clown with strained calf muscles. Jose Reyes is quite acrobatic and he regularly displays that talent by playing with his head up his ass. The team is really a big hunk of swiss cheese. Lots of holes and what's left stinks. Indeed, the glorious Met team of 2006, which came within one hit of reaching the World Series, was not as good as they played. They were the aberration. This is the same concoction of garbage and it is merely a .500 baseball team. And the notion pervaded by Omar Minaya that this roster is anything more is pure folly regardless of whatever is your designated second language.

So, Willie gets on a plane, flies to the West Coast, wins a game, and is fired anyway. Omar says the firing was a gut reaction. Yet, most of the press had the specifics of the changeover as early as last Thursday. Omar's subsequent statements showed more twists and turns and lies than three seasons of Desperate Housewives. if they were going to can Willie, they should have done it weeks ago. It took less time for us to find out who killed Laura Palmer on Twin Peaks. Yes, Met fans were clamoring for Willie's ouster, even chanting the name of "Bobby V" as a potential replacement. But, it wasn't that long ago that the same fans were yelling for the removal of a previous manager also named "Bobby V." But, regardless of the team performance and the fans and the indecision of an amateurish baseball organization, the whole midnight massacre was despicable and no baseball professional deserved to endure it. Surely and most definitely not Willie Randolph. And, in a year or so, the time will come for Omar Minaya to move onto his next career checking on the heat in some tenement on the Grand Concourse. If he's lucky, his firing won't be delivered via e-mail at 12:13AM in a hotel lobby 3000 miles away from his home.

Ironically, this sewage spill might result in an upside for me and my lingering Saturday plan ticket package. Two Loge seats in my name for every Saturday game at Shea Stadium the past 40 years. The rumor has been there will be no room for partial plan holders in Citi Field. Well, as the stench grows around the Met organization, I am thinking that seat availability at the new park might be improving on an hour-by-hour basis. I have said that, if I am offered a Saturday plan in Citi Field, I would take it.

Today.....I don't think so.

Dinner last night: Pepperoni sandwich.