Mets fire Randolph - at 3:11 a.m.
-
- June
- 17
Now this is cowardly, firing the manager on the West Coast and sending an e-mail out at 3:11 a.m.
From the Mets:
ANAHEIM, Calif., June 17, 2008 – The New York Mets today named Jerry Manuel interim manager, replacing Willie Randolph. Manuel, in his fourth season with the Mets, had been bench coach since 2006. The Mets also named Ken Oberkfell, Luis Aguayo and Dan Warthen to the coaching staff. Rick Peterson and Tom Nieto have been relieved of their coaching duties.
Mets General Manager Omar Minaya will hold a briefing with the media Tuesday, June 17 at 2:00 P.M. PT (5:00 P.M. ET) in the media room at Angel Stadium. Mets Manager Jerry Manuel will meet with the media immediately thereafter.
So you have Willie and his coaches go to Anaheim, they win the game and then you fire them at midnight on the West Coast? Wow. Nobody deserves that.
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on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 3:25 am by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
What class acts!
wow what a joke! Willie Come back and coach 3rd lol
why is this not reported anywhere else yet? But the mets as you said show such class here
I would love willie to come back and coach here. Where else is he gonna work right now?
CLASSLESS !!!
Didn’t the Mets trade Tom Seaver in the middle of the night too?
Willie is a class act and he doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. The Mets have threatened to fire him all season and issue statements sticking by him and then they dump him randomly while he is in the beginning of a series that’s three time zones away.
This just shows that the Mets management problems are more in the front office rather than in the dugout.
Unbelievable. You knew it was going to happen, but to do it on a road trip? I hope they had the decency to tell Willie first. Sad. Willie went to bat today for those coaches, who weren’t even his guys. Wouldn’t be surprised if Torre reaches out to Willie. Mets blue, Dodger blue. Whatever.
wow what a joke, at 3 in the morning…willie whadda ya say bench coach in the bronx?
ScapeGoat!!! Omar CYA! Hopefully you’re next. What a tactless bunch of ingrates, Wilpons and Minaya are total Bush league. Omar buys rancid ingredients and expects Chef Willie to come up with a 4 star meal.
Is this a prank
Wow…..I have no respect for the Mets organization now. I wonder what the reception will be on this move. If the Yanks pulled something as gutless as this every loudmouth in the country would rip us for a year.
Nothing @ mlb.com, espn.com, the Times.
There’s an article @ the Daily News.
why are you up at 3 AM?
why are YOU
wow!
They waited for ESPN’s west coast edition to go off the air and for the morning editions of the Post and News to roll out.
Actually Met fans are gonna love this. They HATE Willie. Mostly because he is a Yankee at heart, but you will probably hear Met fans giddy about this one. They are the worst Organization/fans in baseball
I imagine most baseball beat writers are up at this hour cuz most baseball games are a night. when you file stories btn 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM, you’re gonna be up at 4 in the morning.
I feel bad for writers who work in cities that close down at 11:00, like Denver or Pittsburgh. At least most places in new yawk are open til 2:00 am.
How long is Willie’s contract? Hopefully the Muts are still obligated to pay him for more than just this year.
Willie was signed through 2009.
Just saw that. 2 mil for 08 and 2.25 mil for 09. He’ll be in no hurry to go anywhere this year.
That was the work of cowards. Classless to say the least. I hope Willie catches on somewhere he is treated a lot better.
It’s time for Willie to come back to Bronx. It had been strange to see him wearing Mets uniform, for us Yankee fans.
I can’t wait to hear the reception the Mets get during the twinbill. That was a disgusting move. They better have had the guts to tell Willie to his face…or will it show up as a chain letter in his inbox later today?
wow. just, wow! the grace with which they’ve gone about this whole issue is just…. well they are class acts i’ll tell ya, CLASS ACTS. maybe willie wasn’t the best manager. i’m sure jerry manuel will be excellent.
actually i’m glad that this is over. the mets can go to hell and now they’re done dragging willie around. i like the guy and they treated him like __. nobody deserves that.
To fly a guy clear across the country to fire him in the middle of the night after a win speaks to what the Amazing Mets really means.
Future employees should take heed that this is the way they conduct business.
How can anybody in good conscience call themselves a Mets fan after this gross display of cowardice and disgusting behavior?
Good like hiring the next guy Fred and Jeff, he’d have to be nuts to work for a couple of clowns like you!
Sorry Willie – come back home and be the Yanks
the mets ownership and and minaya have to rank with the greatest cowards in all of sports. a tawdry act indeed to fire willie via e mail at 3 am. they should be more concerned with putting a healthy viable team on the field than to satisfy the bloodlust of their fair-weather “fan” -base
Wow, how classless.
When I was young, Willie was my favorite player from the time he came over from Pittsburgh (‘75).
I watched NYMvsLAA tonite on the local telecast & specifically was looking/listening to see/hear if there was any indication that MetMgmt would drop him today (1st game of trip out West et.al). Nothing.
I took a more than passing interest in NYM since Willie went over there; guess I’m glad to be going back to ignoring them, but have to wonder: Will all the melodrama associated with letting him twist for the past 4 weeks preclude him from getting another managerial gig? Your thoughts Pete?
Memo to Mets front office:
Willie was not the problem.
My husband woke me up with this news. He said it wasn’t on ESPN this morning when he was watching, but he turned on Fox and it was there. Obviously it wasn’t in our morning paper (Star Ledger), who ran a story saying Willie still had a job.
I knew if it was true, Pete would have it! I told my husband, Pete never sleeps – he’ll have all the details. And Pete, you didn’t let me down!!!
What a horrible way to let a person go. I don’t think anyone is surprised they finally pulled the trigger, but the sneaky way that they made this move is beyond belief. Apparently they wanted the fan base to find out in dribs and drabs. And if you’re a person like me who doesn’t put on the morning news shows, you’re likely to find out sometime around noon today! (Well, except if you have friends who DO watch the news shows, then you’re phone will be going crazy with text messages!)
Just classless. But they’ve handled the entire situation without class, so how shocked should we really be?
This seriously is a classless act and cowards is the right word for them.
How not to treat a manager:
1. Publicly humiliate him by calling him to the woodshed and leaking that event to the press.
2. Leave him hanging for weeks by not stating he will be the manager for the rest of the year. This has the added benefit of diminishing his authority in the eyes of his players
3. Let him travel 3 time zones and fire him and his coaches after a win,... in the middle of the night.
How does Minaya escape criticism from the way he has handled things this year? Their team is not going to win as constructed.
Does anyone really believe they are a championship team with that pitching staff?
I think Willie did the best he could with what he was given. The Mets will not make the post season this year and you can book that.
Now that Minaya has gotten Willie out of the way – he can go back to trading/signing over the hill players who injure easily.
Randolph has been a class act in this town for over 30 years. This is a pathetic move by the Mets. I knew his job was on the line but to do it this way is a joke. They will pay the price for this.
Minaya is the biggest culprit for stocking the roster with too many old has beens and scrap heap types and depleting the farm system to a joke.
He should be gone soon.
Willie deserves better, management at the Mets are complete cowards! He can go work for ESPN for the rest of the year and then get another manager’s job. Good luck to the Mets on having a better season before they move in to the new stadium, “Two-Shea”!
Not surprised.
I don’t feel bad for him that he got fired, cuz he had it coming for a long time.
But I do feel bad for him as to how it happened, especially after a nice victory.
Totally classless from the Mets, again, not surprised.
Yeah, totally classless. Willie will be back with the Yankees.
In regard to Jerry Manuel. I know him personally, and he is a great guy and a good manager. His kids and I grew up together. His eldest son, Jerry and I were real close, but have lost touch over the years. Anyway, while I hate the Mets, I wish Mr. Manuel the best.
Oh, and with this, I say that the Mets management has given up on the season, they don’t know what direction they’re going in. I think their season might be done.
We can only hope that the Wilpons start receiving thousands of cancellations for next years tickets at ‘Citi Field’.
Wonder what Freddie’s old classmate, Sandy Koufax, thinks of this classless behaviour?
Well, it was certainly well past time for them to [go] or get off the pot, so congrats for actually making a decision, Omar. Now feel free to reap what you have sown.
WHAT THE HELL?!?
That was just wrong on so many levels. When the team doesn’t start winning, who will they blame then?
This is all Jeff Wilpon. He is a SNAKE! Wonder what Rachel Robinson thinks of this?
Willie: come home to the Bronx.
Mets fans don’t like or appreciate Willie and when he screws up, they say “Well he’s a Yankee, that’s why.”
I think he should have put the lid on last year’s celebrations and clamped down on that foolishness during the collapse. To me, letting the Mets act like spoiled frat kids was a mistake. But this year I don’t think the problems are his fault.
you know what’s funny? on ESPN radio this morning, they talked with Steve Phillips about apparently the Mets wanted to fire him yesterday before the West coast trip, but were afraid of the backlash they’d get firing him on Father’s Day.
now they’re getting raked over the coals as an organization for how they handled this mess.
i’m glad for Willie. that team was a disaster, and while he certainly deserves some of the blame, there wasnt much he could do to help players just simply play like they should.
id love to see him welcomed to the YES booth. let Singleton do the play by play, and Willie do the in-game analysis.
What about Bernazard? How come he doesnt get canned? He was probably in on it against Willie. Now we can really root hard against the Mets with willie gone. Didnt the Mets win last night? Why fire him after a win?
I guess this is how some GM’s operate. Minaya threw Willie under the bus. Steve Phillips did the same thing to Bobby Valentine. They do this to save their butt’s for an extra year. Cannot wait for Minaya to get the boot!
Wow, Willie deserved better than this. Everyone knew Minaya was going to fire Willie. To make him fly all the way out to Anaheim, then fire him after a win no less. I wish Willie had just resigned this weekend.
The Mets have a lot of problems. But maybe the tension will ease now. I’m sure everyone was walking around on eggshells waiting for the other shoe to drop. But they don’t have the team to turn it around. They ain’t the ‘78 Yanks. This is a team that rolled over and collapsed last year.
The way this was done will speak volumes to the next managers and coaches. Some may have less interest, others will, but their price goes up. Being willing to grovel in order to manage in New York is not, in my opinion, particularly great evidence of someone being a winner. When Omar gets canned, I expect it to be done in some similarly classless way. Fish rot from the head.
I heard the Yankees will have a stadium-closing-ceremony at the end of the year where they will invite all living Yankees.
Can’t wait to see Willie back in pinstripes. Hoping.
That is just disgusting…so when do they fire Omar?
Class act that Mets organization. Supposedly they didn’t want to fire him on Fathers Day. But you have the man get on a plane and fly across the country, than fire him after a win!
Plus you are so afraid of the NY media that you are holding your press conference in Cali instead of NY. Well guess what NY Mets you still gave all the papers, tv enough time to wake everyones butt up and tell them to board a plane to get there in time for it.
Rishi
Bank on this. If they catch a lot of heat on the way it went down Omar will be gone fairly shortly as well.
The Yankees might bring him back into the orgainzation in some form, but not on the field. YOu are not going to break up a coaching staff that seems to be working well together, and you are not going to undermine your manager by bringing in another. I realize that Pena was a manager but he is a few years removed from that job.
that is pathetic and cowardly – good job to the mets organization for putting the AX in your team for the rest of the year.
F the Mets. Pete you are exactly right. I hope Willie and his coaches read this thread! No hope for the Mets, they are pathetic as always.
Classic MLB viking funeral. Light the boat and drift it out to sea on a road trip.
Pete—You hit the nail on the head—as usual!! I’m glad Willie didn’t quit, so he gets another $3.5M out of the Metsies. He’s earned it, and he’s always a Yankee.
I wonder whether there’s more of a back story here. Willie was all over Milledge for being a showboat and Milledge got dumped. Did he try to discipline some of the established Mets stars for lackadaisical play, perhaps players in whom Minaya had an investment?
One consolation for Yankee fans: I doubt very much that the Mets will win anything with this team. They quit on their manager and the manager got blamed. I would hope that Jerry Manuel will hold a meeting and say that anyone who dogs it will be benched immediately the first time and suspended the second, but I doubt that that will happen. And we all should appreciate those Yanks who have always hustled and had their heads in the game—especially 1996-2001 when it seemed as if the whole team was that way.
The Mets are such an amateurish and classless organization. They make Randolph and the coaching staff fly all the way to the west coast to get fired. This is why they will always be in the Yankees shadow.
That’s why they play in… Flushing.
But check this out:
http://johnsterling.blogspot.com/
This is wrong but remember, Willie is getting paid big bucks. He gets to sit at home and count his money.
Yeah, that has Irsay written all over it. I can see the Mayflower Vans pulling out of Anaheim; sackless clowns. No way to treat a good Yankee.
Michael Kay is going to absolutely grill the Mets organization today, rightfully so. What a gutless group of people. Fire the manager when no one is looking, what a joke. Everyone knew they were scared to do it, we thought they were waiting but instead they were devising this disgraceful little plan to do it on the West coast.
What an absolute scumbag Minaya is, and what a clueless, classless, spineless organization the Mets are. Good luck in front of the firing squad today Omar. Weasel.
Here’s hoping Willie lands on his feet. He’s a good guy and a quality coach. Minaya is the one who built this disaster of a team. He should have been shown the door before Willie.
Classless.
At this point Willie has become a “lame duck” manager, and letting him go makes sense. But, Omar and the Wilpons handled this badly from the start. They left Willy hanging in limbo for weeks since that off day meeting. From then, they should have either fired him or supported him. Then to let him go after winning two games, and worse yet, one game into a west coast road trip!
Willie deserved better.
Willie, you’re welcomed back to the Yankees at any time!
They’re firing the wrong guy…if anything, it’s Minaya who should be the one to go. Shows what a classless organization the Mets are.
WIllie disaplined Reyes, Reyes went crying to Omar.
Also the Met fans cried that they never have the back page of the papers, well they will have it for a few days.
**disciplined
I just hope the Mets paid for Willie’s flight home. Knowing them, I wouldn’t be shocked if Willie had to buy his own ticket.
a classless, second rate organization in a town where only one team will always reign supreme. i’d rather root for the Boston Red Sox than those fools.
i hope they accidentally demolish the new stadium when they tear down Shea.
come back home, Willie. you wouldn’t have told Wang to round third and go home.
In case you forgot Willie was a awful third base coach.
The Wilpons are craven, odious human beings; the Idiot Son, Jeff, in particular. To my mind, Jeff Wilpon always recalled Uriah Heep.
Here’s fitting revenge.
Sometime in the next week, the Steinbrenners hire Willie as a “special advisor,” the role Reggie and Tino now serve.
Before the Mets-Yankees series, Willie, with great fanfare, visits Girardi in the Yankees dugout and reveals all the weaknesses of the Mets hitters and pitchers, and divulges every other trade secret his former team possesses.
The Yankees sweep the series and deliver a catastrophic blow to the Mets playoff chances.
As a Yankee fan my feeling toward the Mets have always been like that Jon Stewart bit about Canada (“What do Americans really think of us?” “Honestly? We don’t.”) I’ve never felt the need to root against them unless we were going head-to-head. Now, however, I hope they fall so far back in the standings they’ll need binoculars to see first place, and those CS’s, the Wilpon’s, can spend next season lording over a half empty new stadium.
agreed CM, the mets were always kinda just ‘there’. no love or hate from me towards them, but i did want willy to succeeed. now they’re even more of team that i don’t care too much about.
could Willie be Cano’s new Bowa?
He was Cano’s Bowa before Bowa, so sure.
I’ve got a couple of good immediate ideas for Willie, before he even takes another job:
1) Throw out the first pitch for Yanks/Mets at 2:00 at the stadium on the 27th, wearing the pinstripes and introduced as a former Yankees great championship player and coach.
2) Coach in the all-star game for the AL, wearing pinstripes.
This team is definitely in turmoil – and has been all year. But the Mets organization is just plain pathetic. Top to bottom. No one deserves to be treated like that. MLB should send out a memo at 3 am tomorrow morning revoking the Wilpon’s ownership.
You are right, Pete. What a bunch of cowards.
Willie – you deserve so much better. I wish you luck in your future endeavors.
The Yankees sweep the series and deliver a catastrophic blow to the Mets playoff chances.
—————The Mets never had any playoff chances to begin with… and now – deservedly so.
Willie should attend Yankee Old-Timer’s Day in August and the Mets should steal some thunder and dramatically announce that he will be back to manage them in 2010 !!!
Who’s going to be the NL coach to replace Willie? Come on Joe Torre….Come back for the fans.
Hopefully we will see Willie in the Bronx someday soon.
the Mets front office is officially a JOKE!!
turn two: i would to…get some soul in the yes both lolol
Wow,
Just checked out the Mets LoHud Blog, this post on the Yankee blog had had more comments than BOTH posts on their own blog.
Pete, you’re doing something pretty special over here! Thank you!
The Mets? Totally classless in their inept handling of this situation. Not that Willie probably didn’t deserve to be fired, but to do it when and how they did? Classless.
And being a lifelong Yankee fan, I know from classless. (Yogi canned after 16 games, Howser canned for losing to the Royals in 80, three managers in 82, Howie Spira) But this is just sad.
Good luck to Willie and his coaches. Hopefully this will all turn out well for them in the end.
As of right now though, I will begin actively root against the Mets (which I had not done before) until at least Omar Minaya is gone.
They made the announcement in the middle of the night? Very classy of the Mets to let Willie get on a plane to California when they knew he was out and then fire him. Yep Mets fans always saying how their ownership is so much classier than the Yanks, yeah okay. Bring Willie back to the Yankees where he belongs.
Yanks should fire Bobby Meacham at 3 AM and bring Willie back as coach.
i hope da yankees take randolph back b4 the subway serious and hope the yankees sweep dem
i hate bobby meachem he loks so boring he has no energy in him i hated wen larry bowa left
Do you think Willie would take a 3rd base coach job. Wave ‘em home was an okay manager but a very good 3rd base coach. Meacham is not good at all. He’s cost us outs and runs all season. Hire Willie back! The Bronx is his real home anyway.
About the only good thing is that since he’s in Anaheim anyway, he can go to Dinseyland. I can picture the “I’m going to Disneyland” commerical now…
Jeff Wilpon = Jim Dolan
Congratulations to the Mets. They have now just named themselves the most hated team and the most classless team in baseball. Whaddya say NY, Fred Wilpon and Omar Minaya public enemy no. 1? LOL.
Willie 3rd base coach is all yours if you want to come back to the Bronx…
Wow, I had a dream about the Mets firing Willie last night and Willie became the Yankees 3rd base coach.