What Have You Learned? Ownership

What Have You Learned is our very special off-season series that will outline what you've learned, what I've learned, and hopefully what the 2009 Mets have learned about themselves, others, and 2010. Today, we look at the Wilpon family, and their family values as they pertain to baseball.

Ownership is underrated. One need look no further than Tampa for proof, where the Devil Rays were less than the model expansion franchise until Stuart Sternberg took over, exorcised the Devil, and brought the newly christened Rays to the World Series. It's also where the late Bill Davidson took over the laughingstock Tampa Bay Lightning and gave them their first Stanley Cup. Take a look at where the Lightning are now under the ownership of Oren Koules, Len Barrie and Absolute Hockey Enterprises to see how fast prosperity can change.

If you believe in the theory that everything trickles down from the top, then you have to believe that the six seasons out of the last eight that have been nightmarishly terrible have also trickled from the top. Not coincidentally, the last eight seasons are the ones since Nelson Doubleday, for all intents and purposes, was out as Mets owner. Not that the Mets history before this has been littered with pennants and World Series titles, but through all of the past angst with this franchise, whether it be Steve Phillips vs. Bobby Valentine, Rick Peterson vs. Scott Kazmir, Art Howe vs. a nap, Julio Franco vs. Mother Nature, Tony Bernazard vs. Willie Randolph, Tony Bernazard vs. the Cyclones Chaplain, Tony Bernazard vs. the Binghamton Mets, Omar Minaya vs. Adam Rubin, Jose Reyes vs. healthy hamstrings, David Wright vs. Citi Field, the one and only common thread through all of this ... is you, Fred Wilpon. And you, Jeff Wilpon.

It's you. It's always been you. And keep in mind that you're forcing me to agree with Wallace Matthews twice in one season. It might be your most egregious offense.

So what have the Wilpons learned? Absolutely nothing. Not a damn thing. Think about it: What did yesterday's Wilpon media blitz solve? Mind you, I saw very little of it. Didn't have to. Hasn't anybody in the Mets organization learned that less is more? That's the tact they take with, say, Mets memorabilia in Citi Field. Unfortunately, it's not the tact they take with, say, news conferences. And while nothing of that level happened, by all accounts the appearance was a horror show. But everything that was said in that news conference and everything they said on the Yankee Propaganda Hour could have been given to us in a news release.

Or better still, not at all. The term "tone deaf" gets thrown around a lot when it comes to how the Mets are run, and Monday was another example. All I kept reading in the last two months is how Met fans want this season to end, and end quickly. What Jeff did was extend the season unnecessarily by one day with his "news" conference, the only news being broken was that he fired Luis Alicea so that he has more time for drinks with Tom Nieto. Jeff's presence on Black Monday, or on any other off day for that matter can never improve perception, only ruin it. His aim was to probably make me realize that ownership really feels bad about this and have me rally behind them. But what really happened was that I listened to him speak and thought that when the movie gets made about this franchise, Adam Sandler is a slam-dunk to play Jeff Wilpon. (And Jeff might be better suited to be a wedding singer anyway.)

And maybe we needed to hear something after 2007, but when you come and apologize three seasons in a row, it gets old ... especially after a season we knew was over in July. It doesn't need to be told to us, just shown to us. Your actions always speak louder than your words. Actions over the last four years: three do-or-die games lost at home, and a 70-win season.

And now, while your words say you're going to do everything you can to fix this, your actions say that you're prepared for the same old same old. Your actions say that you're willing to blame everything on the injuries without taking into account that the baseball that preceded it was shoddy at best. You'd better be right, or else you've just thrown 2010 away before the ink is dry on 2009.

You want to fix this? Start by not doing a thing going forward. You're bringing back Omar, you're bringing back Snoop. Fine. Now go away. Nobody wants to hear from you, nobody wants you peering over their shoulder. Let the baseball people do the baseball things, and you stick to running the business ... because that's what baseball teams are now, right? Nothing more than businesses. I accept that.

But know this: If all you're worried about is the bottom line ... if all you're worried about is the financial ledger, and you're not willing to admit that a baseball team is more than a business to your fan base, and you're not willing to go the extra mile for your loyal fans by doing things such as making your fans feel at home at Citi Field rather than making 90-year-old Brooklyn Dodger fans feel at home, then don't expect Met fans to treat your business as anything more than that. If you treat the Mets, your Mets, as a disposable income option for people who could care more about drinking wine at the Acela Club than about baseball, rather than a baseball team that people have had a life long love affair with, then don't expect the fans, your fans, to treat the Mets as anything more than just one of many choices for their entertainment dollar rather than 25 of their closest friends whom they can't live without. And know that the choices you make for your business do not live, or die, in a vacuum.

Remember that as you wonder why nobody's coming to your sparkling new ballpark in 2010.

Yeah, Sorry If You See This Title On Every Mets Related Blog Tomorrow, But: "They Win The Damn Thing 10-9"

Multiple people wondered if I was still alive after the ninth inning. But to be honest with you, Mets losses lately have desensitised me to the point where I think I just would have laughed if Werth had hit a home run to complete the comeback. But yes, Virginia: they win the damn thing 10-9. Santa Claus lives ... and he's wearing a Pedro Martinez jersey. (Would you believe that Pedro's stellar pitching was eclipsed by the fact that his RBI to make the score 10-1 was the difference in the game?)

Not that tonight's 10-9 win held a lot of similarities to the 10-9 win in Philadelphia in 1990, when the Mets had a 10-3 lead in the ninth yet needed a line-out to Mario Diaz with the bases loaded to end the game. But in that game, the catcher for the Phillies was Tom Nieto. And he had three RBI's.

So if R.J. Swindle becomes the Mets pitching coach in 18 years and then gets fired mid-season, then you can cue the Twilight Zone music.

And yes, to reiterate: Tack-on runs = good. Thanks to Dan Iassogna being convinced by the other three umpires that he is ... in fact ... blind, the Mets needed every single one of those runs. Stupid lousy umpires.

Mob Mentality

The movie Goodfellas was on the other day. I was really tired and wanted (needed) to take a nap to refresh myself, but Goodfellas is one of the movies on my list that I inevitably stop what I'm doing to watch whenever it's on. When I can't make it through the whole thing, the scene I at least try to make it through is the one where Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) thinks he's being made ... and Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) is like a proud father waiting by the pay phone to find out when the deed was done. Except he found out it was the wrong deed when Tommy was whacked instead of made. And Jimmy made the phone call only to hear "Nah, there was a problem ... It's done, and ain't nothing can be done about it." And then Jimmy gets mad and beats the phone into the receiver.

When I got home from work Monday night at about a quarter past two in the morning, I wasn't expecting to wake up with any sort of earth shattering news. But I was reasonably sure that I was going to wake up to Willie Randolph being the manager of the Mets. That's why I wrote this during the game. It was satire. I was kidding.

I woke up instead at 6:30AM (entirely too early) with a kiss from my wife ... and three words whispered: "Willie Randolph's gone."

The first thing I thought of was the classic scene from Goodfellas. Because finding out about it the way that I did felt like a mob hit. There was a problem (actually, a few problems) and the deed was done. Ain't nothing can be done about it. Only instead of revenge for Billy Batts, it was punishment for lack of bats.

I spent today probably the same way most of you spent the day ... lamenting about the classless way that this was handled by the Mets. You know, making Randolph fly all the way to the left coast to fire him after one day, and then hear from Omar Minaya that it was because of the circus that had enveloped the team this past weekend (as if the previous month was a scene from Masterpiece Theatre) and that he wanted an extra day to "sleep on it" after he had made the decision Sunday (apparently not having a pocket schedule with him at the time), and also that he didn't want to fire somebody at the ballpark so he waited until Randolph got to the hotel to do it, hence the late hour. Oh, and did I mention the fact that he wanted Randolph to hear it from Minaya himself and not the media, even though the cat seemed to be already peeking out of the bag?

Classless? Yes.

Vapid and thoughtless? Certainly seems that way no matter what Omar says.

But let me ask a question of you. And ask this of yourself honestly: What did you expect?

I don't mean that in the "well the Wilpons have done this kind of non-sensical stuff before" sense, but in the "baseball is a business" sense. Baseball was bought and paid for a long time ago. It's been hammered in our heads that baseball is a business for a lot of years. And guess what: This kind of stuff happens all the time in the business world. So why wouldn't you expect this to happen though the thin veil of the public trust that baseball is supposed to fall under but never really seems to?

Yeah, it sucks. It sucks to be Willie Randolph tonight. The manner in which Randolph lost his job, whether you believe he should have ultimately lost his job or not, sucks. But in retrospect, we shouldn't have been surprised. And you ask why you should have sympathy for Willie, who lost his job while having a significant nest egg to fall back on while the rest of us struggle with our everyday jobs?

Because if the Wilpons do this to Willie Randolph, a supposed member of their baseball family, imagine how they'll treat you. Well, you don't have to imagine, between tiered pricing and $8 beers and waiting every last minute during a rain delay to sell those beers before announcing the cancellation of the game. So you already know that it's a business.

Oh, players like Tom Glavine will tell you that he originally signed by the Mets because the Wilpons were all about family ... but then they let this happen. Because to the Wilpons ... who are the one common thread woven through the likes of Al Harazin, Jeff Torborg, Bobby Bonilla, firecrackers, bleach, marijuana in peanut butter jars, Mike Piazza to first base, Shane Spencer and Karim Garcia instead of Vladimir Guerrero, and all of the underachieving, dysfunctional clubhouses we've been graced with over the last 20 years ... letting Randolph twist in the wind before firing him in the middle of the night is just murder by numbers at this point.

Now if you have a taste for this experience
And you're flushed with your very first success
Then you must try a twosome or a threesome
And you'll find your conscience bothers you much less
-Murder by Numbers/The Police

Omar was right about one thing: It's not about the shortcomings of Willie Randolph. It usually isn't about the shortcomings of one person when a whole team is going badly, or not as good as they are going on paper. Changing a manager is like pulling a goalie in the NHL. It's usually not because the goalie himself is going bad, but because the team in front of him is skating in molasses or glue and making the goalie look bad. The Mets have been skating in molasses and glue since Memorial Day of '07. Or if you really want to find the true seminal moment, since Cecil Wiggins slammed into Filthy Sanchez's cab the night before the deadline in 2006. Randolph has made questionable moves ... as I'm sure all managers have in that time frame. But the team sure as hell has made him and his moves look bad.

I've admitted in the past that maybe it's been time for that new voice. And certainly, the Mets have had plenty of chances to relieve Randolph of his duties in a way that doesn't make the organization look like bumbling fools. But those at least as old as me know that the Mets don't do things the easy way. Even when the net is wide open they always seem to clang one off the post. The organizational types had plenty of chances this season to dump Willie the right way and give their fans a sign that they're not ready to give up the season and are ready to do anything they have to do to change the voice and charge up their roster.

Instead, they give their fans a peek into their vapid thought process, and have embarrassed them along the way. They make Willie sit through these awkward news conferences to announce that he wasn't losing his job, like that movie that tried to tell the story of the late night wars of the early nineties but ended up being one of those strange cult movies that also ... strangely ... is one of those movies that I watch whenever it's on. (Goodfellas and The Late Shift: the only time you'll see those two movies in the same sentence.) Where Jay Leno says that "hey, we've all gathered here at this news conference, and I have the job! We're here to celebrate the fact I haven't been fired yet!"

Instead, they fire Randolph after a 2,500 mile plane ride and one day in Anaheim. Good job, boys.

Instead, they fire Randolph, Rick Peterson, and Tom Nieto (an arbitrary choice if there ever was one), to try to put a charge in this roster. And Ken Oberkfell, who has been promoted to the coaching staff after managing in the Mets' minor league system for 13 years, joins the major league squad ... and would most likely be fired as part of a purge if there's a new GM next year. Way to see the fruits of 13 seasons riding buses in the minors.

And instead, Jose Reyes ... who's development has been tied to Randolph for years, and is one of the players expected to improve after Randolph's dismissal ... develops a beef with Manuel one play into the new era. One f***ing play! Manuel takes out Reyes as a precaution after he was flexing his leg a bit and tried to work through it. But Manuel, who wants to keep the roster fresh, saw taking out Reyes as an opportunity. Reyes threw a mini-fit and sulked off.

This gives you confidence for the rest of the season?

And there you have it. The Jerry Manuel era: kicked off with a fresh controversy, Reyes' injury replacement forgetting to cover second base on a successful pickoff play, and a rousing six singles. Not really the desired effect. And guess what folks: it's guaranteed to last the rest of the year ... the same guarantee that Randolph couldn't get because, in Minaya's words: "what if I gave Willie the guarantee for the rest of the year and then the club lost fifteen in a row?"

"You know, we always called each other good fellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody: You're gonna like this guy. He's all right. He's a good fella. He's one of us.: You understand? We were good fellas."

Manuel, for the record, is only fourteen losses away from that mob mentality kicking in again.

Breaking News

With the Mets 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning against the Angels, sources are reporting that Willie Randolph will be the Mets manager through the bottom of the first.

Update: After the Angels scored in the bottom of the first, the Wilpons have given Omar Minaya the option of firing Rick Peterson and replacing him with the Rally Monkey.

Update: The Mets' 3-1 lead in the third means that Minaya has called off orders to shoot Tom Nieto on sight. Nieto has gone out to the coaching box without his kevlar.

Update: Carlos Beltran has just hit his second home run of the night as the DH to give the Mets a 4-1 lead. Hank Steinbrenner has just been quoted as saying that he no longer likes the DH rule.

Update: Hitting coach Howard Johnson's job is tenous after concern that offensive production has gone down in each of the Mets' last four innings. Two runs in the first, one run on two hits in the second, one run on one hit in the third, and no runs in the fourth. Minaya has said that "Johnson is my hitting coach, and we will continue to re-evaluate as we go."

Update: Mets brass are privately blaming Willie Randolph over Carlos Delgado's decision to come home on a ground ball with runners on first and third, which may or may not have led to two Angels runs in the bottom of the fourth. The Wilpons are reportedly putting together a list of potential replacements for Randolph.

Update: Tom Nieto was reportedly seen in the tunnel putting his kevlar back on sometime during the last two innings.

Update: Luis Castillo's two run single and David Wright's RBI double in the seventh has convinced Omar and the Wilpons that Howard Johnson should remain the hitting coach for the remainder of the game.

Update: The latest implosion of the Mets bullpen in the bottom of the seventh inning to close the gap to 8-6 has forced the Wilpons to step up their search for a new manager. Brass is torn between Wally Backman of the Joliet Jackhammers, and Tim Teufel of the Savannah Sand Gnats. Omar Minaya has even suggested a platoon system where Backman would be the manager against righties, and Teufel would be the manager against lefties.

Update: The Mets escaped with a 9-6 victory, Mike Pelfrey's first win in more than a month ... but a ninth inning rally off of Billy Wagner has caused some concern over the job that Willie Randolph is doing. The Wilpons and Omar Minaya have refused to shoot down the notion that the Mets coaching staff will be replaced by the cast of "The Hills" for Tuesday night's game.

They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Haaa!

It's becoming evident that Willie Randolph has gone completely insane.

It's not his fault. But circumstances are driving him to the asylum.

Of course, it doesn't help that Sandy Alomar Sr. had the kind of flashback that makes slow catchers look eerily similar to Lou Brock during Game 1 of the double dip against the Rangers. But here's Willie Randolph on Alomar's decision to send Brian Schneider home on a short fly ball to Milton Bradley in the eighth which basically blew any Mets chance at a comeback:

"In retrospect, he was thrown out by a lot (at home), so it probably wasn't a definite good send," said Randolph, who served as the Yankees' third base coach for 10 years. "But it's lonely over there at third base, and you make a decision. The throw was good, but it didn't put a damper on that inning right there."

It's lonely?

Wait a second, shouldn't that mean that instead of having lots of friends around to talk to, that Sandy Alomar Sr. would have extra time to, oh I don't know, think about why sending a catcher home on a short fly ball would be a bad idea? Lonely??? Alomar made a bad read because he was lonely? Sandy Alomar Sr. needs to go on eHarmony.com?

"Go Schneider! Run like the wind! I want to be lonely again!!! Booooooooooorn Freeeeeeeeee! As free as the wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind bloooooooooooooows!"

Koo-koo! Koo-koo! Koo-koo!

(Or is that ... Dae Sung Koo-Koo?)

Then, after Robinson Cancel saved Randolph's bacon by getting a pinch-hit two run single in the sixth giving the Mets the lead for good in game 2 while everyone in the stands were chanting for Pedro Martinez to stay in the game (and saved the Mets from the awful stat that the team is 0-9 when being tied after six innings), Randolph says this:

"Because of the rainout, yeah it almost felt like we went one for three really ... but the record shows otherwise so we'll take it."

Willie Randolph has become one of those chain smokers that can't enjoy food anymore because he's smoked so much that everything tastes like tar and menthol. Even a series win feels like a series loss to Randolph. That's not supposed to happen to a manager until he's been around 25 years. Willie hasn't even managed four.

That ... my friends ... is what working for this organization will get you. Fewer brain cells. So yes, fire Willie. Fire Willie Randolph so he can regain his sanity and get a cushy job as Joe Torre's bench coach. Save him from a fate of sneaking on team flights in disguises so he can't be fired.

Fire Rick Peterson so he can become Barry Zito's love guru. (Or maybe he'll go to San Diego and straighten out Heath Bell's fastball again).

Fire Tom Nieto so he can go to another organization and a whole other fan base can forget that he works for them until it's time to fire seven coaches.

Fire them all. Except Jerry Manuel, that is. Yes, by all means promote Jerry Manuel ... who outside of one division title in 2000 is a .500 manager ... a perfect match for a .500 roster. He'll fire up the troops just fine.

Yes, give us Jerry. Arm him with more of the weapons of Omar Minaya's past ... such as Tony Armas Jr. And bring back the rest of the Expo luminaries: Shane Andrews. Fernando Seguignol. Orlando Merced. Wilton Guerrero. Trace Coquillette. And what's Mel Rojas doing these days, anyway?

Bring 'em back. That'll do the trick.

Ah, f**k. Guess I've gone crazy too. And I haven't even flown back and forth from the west coast every other week. Think how Willie feels.

Most be lonely on those flights.