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Prior to yesterday’s game against the Braves, Willie Randolph did his best to backpedal from his comments in Ian O’Oconner’s column in the Bergen Record from Sunday.
For more on these statements, click here.
Yesterday afternoon, O’Conner talked with WFAN about how the interview went down, which you can here at WFAN.com.
…for what it’s worth, i heard from a few people close to willie who feel these comments were taken out of context, many of which were understood to be off the record…o’conner, however, does not feel this is the case, as noted in his interview with WFAN, who did an outstanding job with him trying to round out this discussion…nice job, joe and evan…
For more, and, oh, there is more, check out the New York Post, Newsday, and Newsday, and Newsday, and the Daily News, where Bob Raissman writes:
“Willie Randolph should spend less time fretting over the media and more time worrying about his team’s performance.”
…i could not have said it better myself, bob…nicely put…
Meanwhile, in a post to Brooklyn Met Fan, Adam wonders if these are the last days of Willie.
…i don’t know, adam, but i will say this: in the last 48 hours i have talked with a few people who are connected to the Mets, and the following words were said quite while describing willie: delusional, stubborn, paranoid, and martyr…
…also, it is pretty clear that the team’s management is quite angry with willie, who i’m told is a man who does not like to be questioned or second-guessed, which is not necessarily the best quality for a baseball manager…
…what’s worse, from what i can gather, he genuinely believes he is getting a raw deal among fans and reporters…
…case in point, on his radio show on ESPN 1050, Michael Kay, who claims to be a huge supporter of willie, recently told a story about how he talked with randolph before a game this past weekend in the Bronx, and willie accused kay of being too critical…talking to his listeners, kay said he had never seen willie that defensive, and was shocked at what he was saying, since, again, according to kay, he been his most ardent supporter…
…the way i see this, willie and management are like two trains getting very, very close to a collision…and, if the two trains do not start winning, and moving in the same direction, some one is going to get bumped from the tracks…
i think the clock is ticking on willie.i would rather see the mets start to bring up kids to replace the players not performing on the current roster,along with the triple a manager and his staff.i dont see this team as is it now getting it done.the time has come for a freash start
could it be any worse then what we are watching now?i would be more excited rooting for kids.
just a thought,is it possible that tom glavine underperformed in the
game against the marlins beacause he wanted out of new york?
the glavine i saw yesterday was the pitcher of old,not the one that piched for the mets.
Take care, Willie. It’s been real.
you’re joking about the Glavine thing, right?
Look, I hate the guy, but there’s no way he pitched like that on purpose. He’s always been a competitor. He’s pitching well now because it’s the beginning of the season and he hasn’t run out of gas. He was 5-1 with a 3.43 ERA at this point last season. You didn’t honestly think that just because of his performance in his last few starts his career was over, did you?
i seem to remember that all of last year he was leaning towards retirement,now all of a sudden he wants to pitch at least for another year being back in atlanta.i think he did not want to be here at all and saw it as a chance to push himself back to atlanta.
How’s that tin foil hat fitting you?
There’s no way a professional like Tom Glavine would pitch poorly on purpose – especially when the playoffs were on the line. Glavine’s contract expried at the end of 2007. His staying in New York or moving to Atlanta (or anywhere else) was his decision, regardless of how he pitched that final game.
Besides, if he wanted to leave New York, he had a chance to do so at the end of 2006 but chose to stay another year. I’m sure if the Wilpons threw another wad of cash at him in 2007, he would have stayed here another year.
the guy’s gotta go. It was bad enough that this team hasn’t put together a consistent stretch of good baseball since last May, but add to that all this stuff about Willie being paranoid and delusional….does anyone think the Mets players wouldn’t pick up on that stuff and lose confidence in the guy?
Plus, if they fire him now, he leaves town with the second highest regular season winning % in team history, so at least he’ll have a shred of dignity. If he keeps managing, he’ll slip below Bobby V. in a few weeks and Harrelson and Hodges aren’t too far behind that.
Anyone who supports or defends Willie in the past, cannot defend this man right now. He is a dead man walking at this point.
When you start to question the organization’s intents (whether it is true or not) as well as the organizations parent network, then any shred of hope that you will retain your job is out the window.
I think we can all agree on this.
Fire…Willie…NOW.
It’s indefensible, really.
He’s not only insulted (and made some pretty interesting accusations against) his employers — but has tried his hardest to slap a back-handed insult on the entire fanbase, on top of all the racial crap.
Personally, I don’t care about his racial “plight”…..to me, it’s the exact reason he has this job.
This is the quote that annoyed me the most:
“I’m proud of that, because prior to that Mets fans were hiding. You couldn’t even find them … The season’s just starting and you’re booing my guys already? You’re booing your team?’”
So, I guess I was “hiding” when I rooted my 4-year old (yes, 5 at the time of my 1st game in 1983) butt off for African-American players such as Straw, Doc, Hubie Brooks, and Mookie Wilson?
This guy is delusional, and actually defended Isiah Thomas.
‘Nuff said.
It’s one think to be a bad coach. (I mean — Giant fans hated Coughlin — and he did a great coaching job last year).
It’s another to make it personal and insult people on top of it all. Hey Willie — there’s always The Bronx……3rd base coach has your name written all over it.
Just don’t play the race card when you have a runner or 2 gunned down at the plate.
I can now say with certainty: WIC!!
Willie
Is
Clueless!
To be fair, I think the “hiding” comment was a reference to the Art Howe years – but even so, it’s an insult to those of us who still supported the team and showed up at Shea those dark years.
So that’s an insult to the most hardcore fans of all. The fans who will buy tickets through anything, good times and bad. I take personal offense at that, and so should anyone else who was there at that time.
ya really gotta scratch yer head and laugh……..it’s unbelievable…
but it all goes back to the historic collapse .. and it’s spector looming so large it cant be brushed away….. it ran so deep thru the organization and no one really wanted to believe it let alone take blame……. as good a guy as willie is, as much as we all pulled for him, he couldnt right his ship, his fault or not ,he was the skipper and he needed to go ,to rid the ghosts and question marks that followed …. as much as we wanted to believe a new year would bring a fresh start, it just brought back the same raw emotions and same question marks again , only intensified by time………… willie should have been let go ….period….
I think the Mets front office and ownership get a huge share of the blame on this whole situation for not holding anyone accountable for last year’s collapse.
Not to mention for hiring someone on faith or novelty, as opposed to actual skills or experience or resumé.
The only person they could conceivably hold accountable was Randolph. Basically, I think Randolph groveled for his job insisting everything would be different this year, and then he refused to change. Randolph’s time is up.
Couldn’t agree more. This entire year has been “Collapse” Phase II. It’s the lens through which we must view and judge Willie’s performance
Just fire him already…..get it over with. Geez….leave it to the Mets to drag their feet here when the outcome is inevitable.
Hey Willie let me help you put your finger on it….your club has the highest payroll in the national league and you can’t compete with the nationals!!!
MLB has a long history of managers getting fired when their teams under perform…you can look it up …and if I’m not mistaken some of those guys were white!
The race card Willie? Get real,So I guess when you get canned we can expect Al Sharpton demonstrating outside the gates!
One more thing Mr Randolph…if you don’t think Isiah Thomas deserved the treatment he got ….well just let me say there is no hope for you and just leave it at that.
What this team needs is some of that 86 swagger….can you say Wally Backman!!!
It would be great if the Mets let Willie go before the All Star game so he doesn’t have the pleasure of being a part of the game. He doesn’t deserve it.
Think we will get any “Fire Willie” chants when he gets back to Shea?
I don’t know if he makes it back to Shea.
If he does, then yes, there will be a cachophony of fire willie chants. They will be more vocal if they lose the braves and Colo series.
Look at today’s Willie confidence poll whener, for the first time, 1 is winning.
BTW, Matt needs to add zero to these 1-10 polls as he represents the results as a percentage. As it is now, 10% is the lowest option.
When the Mets first hired Willie, I liked the hire. It didn’t bother me that he was a “Yankee”. I liked the the type of player he was and I thought that type of style would translate into a winning formula. For me, Willie’s warts really started to show, last year after the team got off to a great start then totally went into autopilot mode (which they haven’t gotten off since).
This year, Willie’s strange personality really came out. All of the shots at the fans, the organization and the media. It really makes you scratch your head as to how this guy got hired in the first place. Willie needs to go, I think the sooner the better.
Unfortunately, we are all so focused on Willie getting fired, that we are not thinking about what happens after he is fired. There isn’t any great manager out there, that can save our season. Even if we brought in (fill in the blank), I doubt that the team will rebound from this turmoil. So the team, that we all envisioned possibly going to the WS, will be a big dissappointment again.
So thanks alot Willie for destroying two seasons of my Mets life.
I don’t think it necessarily matters who replaces him this year. Whoever you put in is going to be on a trial basis anyway – if he does well, great, if not, you search for a manager over the offseason. What’s clear is that we’re not going anywhere with Willie still here. From what I understand, Oberkfell deserves a shot.
All the good will Willie may have gained Saturday & Sunday was washed away yesterday. Such is the life of a .500 team
If the Wilpons have already made up their mind, they need to stop watching the calendar and eating up days until they think it’s an appropriate time. This is becoming too much of a distraction, and everyone is suffering for it now.
If the Mets can’t pull off at least one win in this Atlanta series, they need to leave Willie there. He can make all of the excuses he wants to make at that point, but another couple of days like what we saw last night and none of his excuses will hold any water.
If he comes back to Shea with this team and things continue on this path, we will be seeing Al Sharpton soon. Nobody needs that.
This quote pretty much is the reason Willie should be let go….
“We need to get going, obviously,” Randolph said. “But you guard against overreacting to a day here, a day there.”
A DAY HERE, A DAY THERE???? HOW ABOUT A SEASON HERE, A SEASON THERE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. THERE WAS NO URGENCY DOWN THE STRETCH LAST YEAR. THERE IS NO URGENCY THIS YEAR. THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH WE CAN TAKE OF WILLIE SAYING EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE.
I avoided the papers today because I knew his comments would infuriate me and then I come here and read this nonsense.
Willie is a moron. Simple as that. I will not buy a single ticket to a game until he is gone. I urge you all to do the same.
How about two in one day? How many games does this team have to lose in one day before Willie stops this “it’s just one day, it’s just one game” approach.
Do they need to get swept in a triple-header?
It doesn’t even matter now. This team is going to win two and lose two and win one and lose one and win three and lose three for the rest of the season. It’s not just Willie. But Willie is supposed to be leading, and instead he’s too busy feeling sorry for himself. How are the players supposed to respond to that? Oh yeah, they don’t. How should the fans respond when we were there all along and we are accused of hiding before Willie came to save the day? Just cut your losses Wilpons. This is going nowhere fast.
The book is really coming together guys…I am adding the following chapters:
Los Mets Perfect the Cha-Cha:2 Steps Forward, 2 Steps Back
Willie the Martyr
Thanks Willie, couldn’t have done this without you.
it’s really astonishing to me how many are ready to give up on this season already, which is exactly what “we’re not going anywhere with him” translates to. If we win 3 of the next five games, we’ll have had a 5-4 road trip. This division is all clumped together. We haven’t played our best baseball. There is soooo much more baseball to be played, I just don’t get how so many can believe that firing Willie is the magic wand that will make these guys throw strikes, get hits and score runs.
What has this team showed you that makes you think they are going to flip a magic switch and be something more than they are right now. This team is just not built right. It’s not just Willie, but Willie is talking his way right out of here. Maybe that’s what he’s trying to do. And don’t tell me the rest of the teams aren’t doing any better. You worry about your own business, and right now Mets business is not very good.
no magic switches at all for me (that’s sort of what I was saying about firing willie, that it’s not a magic switch)… I do expect that balls that are being smoked directly to fielders will not always do so. but the situation is not nearly as dire as one who’d never seen a game and only read these boards would believe. I just really think people are overreacting.
While I think there are certainly problems right now, I don’t think it’s a matter of the team not being built right. We have speed, power, defense, and pitching. Ron and keith say it at least once a game: this lineup gives you no breaks. We have one of teh best closers in the game, and potentially one of the best staffs.
I think way too much focus is being given to the result of every negative play, every negative at bat, and the forest is being missed for the trees. big picture, it essentially takes 6 months of 15-12 to reach 90 wins, which should easily be competitive for the division. 15-12, looked at game by game, seems like underacheivement, when it’s not necessarily so.
I hope you are right. I do think the team is not built the right way, but we will see. Maybe this is rock bottom and the only way to go from here is up. Thanks for the reply.
So…The Mets part with Willie and then what? Whos going to manage? Bring back Valentine? That would be awesome
Never gonna happen. Didnt you see the Zen of Bobby V? Does that look like a man who wants to move?
Yea he’s not goin anywhere. Personally I’m happy for him. I think Omar would be better served by calling Felipe Alou and seeing if he’s interested.
I’m guessing Mazz or Manuel. I’m not sold on either, but anyone has to be better than Willie.
It would be Manuel. They aren’t going to bring a high-profile guy in during the middle of the season, especially if they’re flirting with .500 all year. Manuel would be the interim guy, and then they would go high-profile for 2009. And they WILL go high-profile for Citi Field with the manager and with a lot more… Especially is this team doesn’t make the playoffs.
If Willie is fired…this team will make the playoffs. No doubt in my mind.
Only one way to find out…
Cuban, I just don’t get the line of thinking that a manager has that much of an impact on the team. If we fire willie, we have pretty much just as much of a shot to make the playoffs as we would have if we kept him.
I for one believe in “energy” and once the “energy” changes, as a manager you have to figure out someway to get it back. Do you think this team is in a good place mentally? They bicker, they look listless, they look complacent. All of this after the worst collapse in the history of the sport. If anything, this team should have bonded after last year; instead they have grown apart. That is on the manager. A new guy should be able to rally the troops.
dude you have some insightful things to say on this blog, but you lose all credibility when you suggest mazz will replace willy, or be a better manager than willie. do you even watch the post game? mazzilli is a complete moron.
I said I wasn’t sold on them. I said that they are the likely candidates. I can’t be delusional and think that the Mets are gonna find someone out of the sky or take a risk with another unproven guy while going into a new stadium. I actually think Manuel picked up steam after getting tossed on Sunday.
firing willie won’t change the team’s performance. it will just shift the anger to omar. then the wilpons.
if willie is fired omar needs to make a few moves to infuse some life in the clubhouse and team along with selecting the right replacement not promoting manuel or anyone else currently on the staff.
suggestions: hire showalter to replace bernazard as head of player development; hire a manager with winning credentials such as tom kelly; bring in a professional hitting coach with a long resume; hire jose valentin as first-base coach; cut or bench delgado and trade for sean casey who is a gritty, consistent player; trade for cliff floyd to platoon with alou.
the two trade won’t require giving up much talent and are short-term solutions to critical problems in the clubhouse and daily line-up in terms of grit and joy.
Zen, we often disagree, but all your suggestions are great. Although I do think that firing Willie will improve performance more than you think.
I agree with Zen’s suggested moves and have since he first brought them up. I do think bernazard has to go before any new manager is brought in. It is unclear to me if they will make these sorts of moves mid-season or if it will be just an interim manager, with the ancillary moves made in the offseason. I fear it will be the latter.
If he is canned at the end of this road trip, MEMORIAL DAY BBQ UNDER THE BRIDGE.
i think that what we’re seeing and hearing from willie is actually his prelude to leaving the team on his own terms. to save face, he is portraying himself in this slightly nutty manner so that is can be WILLIE himself who decides to leave for the good of the team. this would allow the situation to resolve itself without looking like a massacre. willie could be said to have “taken one for the team”. all of willie’s crazy bantering seems to me to be a huge public relations ploy to allow willie to leave with some dignity intact.
Willie’s gotta go because….
1. the team is going nowhere with him
2, he’s lost the respect of mgt
3. the player’s make too many fundamental errors
4. you can’t fire 25 guys
5. He’s become a major distraction
With the Mets be better without him? I don’t know, but quite frankly, I can’t see them being any worse.
Willie, don’t let the door hit you on the way out
Maybe since all you ladies have played the “fire willie” thing out, you should start working on the next thing you can B&M about? What’s next? Maybe Reyes adjusting his jock too much? Or Wright making occasional wide throws to first?
I’ve never heard a bigger bunch of complainers in my life! The players didn’t hit, pitch or field well yesterday, either.
Support your team: stop being cry babies… sheesh.
Heyman article just discussed on the FAN.
vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1137745/index.htm
What Willie Said:
I reassured [Wilpon] that I’d work my butt off to get the team back to playing the way it can.
What Willie Meant:
Who does this guy think he is telling me how to run my team?
If only SNY would give us shots of Willie teaching and giving “his guys” high fives. I think that might just be what this team needs to turn the corner.
I think we should all bring strawberries for WIllie.
Not in honor of Darryl, but the Caine Mutuiny. He’s delusional, paranoid, mentally unstable and has lost control of his ship. Time for the XO to take over.
Excellent!!!!!
Willie will be sitting by his phone for years and years waiting for the next managers job to be offered. But that will be because he’s black and nothing to do with his lack of managering skills.
They could hire Darryl as Manager. We can bring it back to 86…when the whole team was blowin lines and partying…Well, the key was that they were having a BLAST…no pun intended(well, ok there was)and winning ball games. Clearly, Im not serious about hiring Darryl,but it would be funny. The point Im trying to make is no matter who manages this team, the idea is to have fun again…do homerun handshakes, put funny disguises on in the dugout, stop taking everything so seriously…Put last year behind! Have FUN AND START WINNING AGAIN