We Blog Baseball!

By Sean Connolly

Could the Mets handle this situation any worse? Throughout the last month or two, there has been heightened speculation about Willie Randolph’s coaching future. They have left Willie out to dry with dumb meetings and threats leaked to the media to make the job of coaching the Mets worse than it already is. So it only makes since that at 3:30 in the morning yesterday, they end this tabocle the worst way possible.

A report stated this weekend that if Willie doesn’t turn things around he is out as manager. The Mets were in the midst of a road trip in Texas playing against the Rangers when these rumors began. I never understand these threats in sports. Upper management threatens a coach to get the team together in a matter of days. If the thought of firing Willie was in the mind of Omar Minaya, what is winning a couple games against the Rangers, who don’t even play in your league, going to change things. And why would you do it in the middle of a road trip? Why not before or after a road trip? And why at 3:30 IN THE MORNING!?!?

I’ve heard a lot(maybe too much) about why Willie was fired at 3:30 in the morning. Maybe they were up talking about the job or maybe Omar had a bad dream about Willie and decided then, I don’t know. But, I do know this, do it when people are awake, do it when everyone else does it, sometime during the next day. The worst thing I heard was that maybe Omar gave Willie the choice of firing his coaches or its him. Why would Omar want Willie Randolph to fire his bench coaches and if he didn’t hire one? That would be the worst comeback ever to Randolph refusing to fire his coaches. I could hear it now, ‘you’re not gonna fire your coaches…well, I’ll uh, make one of them the manager, uh yeah, how do you like that Willie?’ Ridiculous.

Now, Jerry Manuel is the new coach of the New York Mets. This is the same Jerry Manuel who was not experienced enough a month ago when Willie firing rumors began. It was said that if there was a coach on the team that could do any better than Willie that coach would be upped to manager. But, at the time it was said there was no one there. Did Manuel prove himself over the past month or something? This was handled as poorly as possible and the Mets should be ashamed.

Willie Randolph should have been fired. But, fire him after his team makes the biggest collapse in regular season history. Fire him when you first bring it up. Don’t distract the team for an entire month, making them wonder who will be their manager each day. Show some respect and let Met fans wake up before they hear their season is over with Jerry Manuel at manager. Because it’s going to be a long season for them, and they’re going to need their sleep.