Willie's A Goner
The malaise that is the New York Mets continues this season as a holdover from last year when the team’s monumental September collapse became the lightning rod for everything wrong with the club.
“They’re too soft!”
“There’s no timely hitting!”
(INSERT PLAYER’S NAME) sucks!”
“Willie Randolph is a …”
Willie Randolph is a what?
Willie Randolph is a goner.
He’s been a winner with the New York Yankees as a player (two rings) and a coach (four). Yet, he gets blamed for anything and everything from his demeanor on the field, to his low-key post game press conferences, to the way he wears his cap (Not really, but that’s coming).
The fans get on him when the only thing most of them have ever managed is their television remote. Yet, they are experts. Sure, fans are entitled to their opinions, but not when they are wrong.
Now, Randolph is in the hot seat because of some comments he made to The Bergen Record newspaper.
Randolph stated that there is racism in the way he’s being treated by the fans and the way SportsNet New York, the Mets’ television network, covers him in the dugout.
For three straight days on my WFAN overnight shift I heard a bunch of Mets’ fans — I can only assume they are white — saying what a class act Willie is, BUT …
Then they remembered every bad move he has ever made as skipper of the Mets.
Yet, after he swept the Yankees in a two-day, rain-shortened Subway Series, no one called to praise Willie.
Strange.
When I attended a boxing press conference a few days later for the July 26 Miguel Cotto-Antonio Margarito welterweight clash, all the writers I spoke to, who happened to be black or Latino, couldn’t understand what the whole “racism” flap was all about.
They all shrugged. I guess we truly are two or three Americas.
I even had a white caller tell me on the air what Willie said was not good for the African-American community.
I wondered what brothers he spoke to?
Is it Randolph’s fault that first baseman Carlos Delgado is getting old and can’t turn on the inside fastball anymore? Is it his fault that third baseman David Wright runs hotter and colder than anybody else in Major League Baseball or that he can scoop up any ball hit to him, then throw it into the stands? Is it his fault that future Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez hurt his hamstring and hasn’t pitched since the second day of the season? Is it his fault that Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez is 76 with a bunion almost as old? Is it his fault that second sacker Luis Castillo is gimping around with bad knees, a bad quad and three years to go on his contract? Is it his fault that Moises Alou is on the disabled list … again?
Or maybe the Mets are just not that good.
Fans continue to criticize Randolph because he doesn’t turn over tables like the late Billy Martin or scream at umpires like Earl Weaver.
Randolph has a quiet dignity about him like Walter Alston, who managed the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1954 to 1976 with only one-year contracts, or former Met skipper Gil Hodges. Bobby Valentine, Willie Randolph is not.
You can’t ask Randolph to be any more vociferous than you could have asked Martin to tone his act down a notch.
Randolph is what he is. He is not the best or the worst manager in the big leagues. His managerial IQ will rise if and when he earns a championship as a skipper.
Dan Graziano of the Newark Star-Ledger noted in his May 9th piece that the Mets’ brass will evaluate Randolph around June 1. He states that unless the Mets are in complete freefall mode, he is safe for the year.
Is it June yet?
Management has made it clear that they expect the Mets to go deep into the 2008 playoffs.
A first-round exit is unacceptable as is losing in the second round. Losing in the World Series isn’t too bad (didn’t Valentine do that?) and winning the Series usually means a contract extension, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
If Delgado, Wright, Martinez, et al were playing up to their potential, Randolph would be a genius regardless of his statements or misstatements.
I ask a simple question: Will Willie Randolph make it to his 300 career win as the Mets’ manager? He’s currently stuck on 290, prior to the May 23rd game versus the Colorado Rockies.
As much as I respect Randolph as a man and a manager, he’s gone.
When you hint at racism at a TV network which is owned by your owner … you do the math and I don’t think it adds up to 300 career Met wins.
