Kanadesaga

06/17/2008 3:37 AM ET
Mets name Manuel interim manager
Randolph, two coaches let go after win over Angels
By Anthony DiComo / MLB.com

ANAHEIM -- The Mets dismissed manager Willie Randolph and two coaches early Tuesday morning, bringing a sudden end to weeks of speculation.
Bench coach Jerry Manuel has assumed interim managerial duties.

Roughly two hours after their 9-6 win against the Angels, the Mets announced that Randolph, pitching coach Rick Peterson and first-base coach Tom Nieto had all been relieved of their duties. The team promoted Ken Oberkfell, Dan Warthen and Luis Aguayo to take their places.

The Mets will make a more formal announcement on Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET.

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"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."

W.M.DEEEZ

Neither of those three have a damn thing to do with the fact that the bullpen can't get the job done...no different than the end of last year.

Funny...last year Randolph was a genius. In the off season, they did nothing to fix their bullpen ills. So, twice now Santana throws beautiful games, only to get a ND because of the same old shit.

Oh yea...this'll fix everything.

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Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone

Kanadesaga

I can see Peterson going. He has a stable, they're just not performing. That happens. Heilman was strong last night, finally. Sanchez too. Schoenweiss and Smith are replacable I think. And Wagner has now been snakebit, he was afraid to pitch cause of the long ball.

__________________
"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."

Kanadesaga

Vaccaro: Amazin' act of cowardice
by MIKE VACCARO, New York Post

ANAHEIM - The e-mail was time-stamped 3:14 a.m., Eastern time. In a simpler time, in a different world, maybe the Mets would have succeeded completely in this cowardly purge of their baseball team. Maybe then they would have been able to hold off on telling everybody what they'd planned to do until long past their vessels in the media were fast asleep.


Ah, but there is this wonderful thing known as the Internet now, and here we are, telling you that while you were sleeping, at 3:14 a.m. New York time, at 12:14 a.m. California time, two hours after the Mets beat the Angels 9-6, the Mets finally got around to firing Willie Randolph.

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-Eleven, 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.

And here's the ridiculous part: They could have gone through the transaction of what they did — firing Randolph, firing Rick Peterson, firing Tom Nieto, elevating Jerry Manuel and Ken Oberkfell and Luis Aguayo and Dan Warthen, at any time across the past few weeks and they would have been perfectly justified.

Hell, if they wanted to raze the whole staff last October, after the epic collapse of September, that would have been all right, too. You may not have agreed with it (although a loud segment of Mets fans surely would have). But that would have simply been a baseball decision. And the baseball was enough to warrant it.




This? This is unspeakable. These men couldn't have been fired in New York, before heading on a plane and flying 3,000 miles to their doom? They couldn't have been spared the ignominy of a public perp walk back east, their dignity thrown into their carry-on luggage?

Really?

Is this the best the Mets can do? Is this really what they are about? Can they really consider themselves a professional operation when they do the simplest task in sports, firing the manager, this wretchedly?

It's entirely possible that Randolph fell on his sword over this one, because it was being swirled that he would be spared and his coaches sacrificed, and if that indeed happened we will laud him and praise him for that later on. Randolph was never going to be confused with John J. McGraw as a manager. But he wasn't J. Edgar Hoover as a person, either. We already knew that.

What we know now is that Randolph was so much better than the men he worked for it's as if they were playing a different game in a different league. What a fiasco. What a joke. Less than two years after Game 7, less than nine months from opening their signature ballpark, the Mets reveal themselves, again, for what they've been for too long.

A cheap, unfunny joke.

Run by a miserable cast of miscreants. Good for Randolph, Peterson and Nieto. They may not know this, but their lot in life just got a bit brighter, getting away from this batch of bums


FOX Sports on MSN - MLB -

__________________
"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."

Kanadesaga

Mets......1




Angels...6



the Jerry Manuel era begins.

__________________
"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."

W.M.DEEEZ

I watched Minaya at his press conference, and I will grant him some of his excuses for handling the firing the way he did.

All that aside, Randolph had the support of most of his team, and many of the fans.

What was absent from the press conference, was any mention of the fact that last year's collapse, and this years continuation, is a direct result of no off season deals, to obtain a bullpen...period.

Why not call it what it is? How many decades of hearing the term "good pitching beats good hitting" will it take before management puts together the final piece to this puzzle?

We are knocking on the door....let's open the damn thing already. Randolph has made a few goofy on field decisions....granted...but you aren't going to find anyone that will stop Heilman from serving up meatballs, or get half the staff to stop walking hitters late in the game.



As one who has a family member on the board of the Mets, I'll say that they've made some improvements from the blunders of post 86 years. They are however, a bunch of businessmen who know little of clubhouse chemistry, and everything about sales.


Minaya was supposed to be the cog that connected the two. I won't dismiss him yet, as he's done great things with the team, but dumping Randolph isn't going to fix the one glaring ill......the bullpen

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Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone

Kanadesaga

Pitchers are the stupidiest players on the field! when they start thinking they get in trouble, always! Wagner started thinking after that first blown save and gave himself two more. heilman had his head up his ass (still does) and sanchez vargas scheonweiss smith could do their shit if they wouldn't think about it. done being pitching coach.

the bats are still quiet. and Jose was upset last night. Acting like a fucking baby. It better turn quick.

__________________
"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."

W.M.DEEEZ

Agreed...in any sport, when you lose focus...you're done.

The argument can be made that the right manager could help right the ship, but we're talking about throwing strikes...not staying focused.

I just think that they served up the proverbial scape goat with Randolph. It isn't like he had a mutiny on his hands...we're losing games where we've scored 5 runs or better!


I guess we'll see how this plays out. Minaya did make mention of "deals" in the works.

__________________
Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone

Kanadesaga

Trot Nixon for one!

__________________
"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."

Kanadesaga

Mets.......5....11.....0




Angels....4....10.....1 (10)


Easley, HR in the 10th!

Wagner, 1 -2 -3.

__________________
"..., because hope don't park the motherfucking car."