The Mets Police – Page 4321 – What Mets fans talk about when not talking about the actual games.

July 28, 2009

What New York Met Was "In Trouble Constantly" And Threw Out A First Pitch?

In a discussion about Pete Rose being in the Hall of Fame (he should by the way) – the Chicago Trubune included this paragraph.

There was a player for the Mets who was in trouble constantly and he was allowed to throw out a first pitch last year. I won’t say his name and I know some people, including me, hope he’s finally over his problems. If he wasn’t such a great player, I wonder how many people would support him.

I wonder who they mean?

The Chicago Tribune article is here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/chi-090728rollberg_briefs,0,2105582.story

…

Has anyone been out to Citi this week? Have the Mets added any more “Mets stuff” around Citi Field as was promised? Did the new RF video screen go up?

July 28, 2009

Inbox: Reactions To Me Saying Omar Minaya Should Not Lose Job

Minaya-gate (or should it be Rubin-gate?) still getting lots of passion. The good news is that it distracted everyone from talking about Bobby Valentine announcing he’s leaving Chiba for sure.

So I asked….why fire Omar? Y’all said:

Sux2Lose has left a new comment on your post “Why Do You Want The New York Mets To Fire Omar Min…“:

I was pro-fire-Omar before yesterday. Lots of reasons-some you mentioned.

Organizational depth – you can’t dismiss it b/c Tony got fired. Its Omars shop-full autonomy-he’s responsible for the success of the people he hires.

Bad Contracts (mostly b/c of too many years) – Castillo, Schoenweis, Mota, Pedro (debatable), Perez

Injuries – Again, trainers report to him. I’m not convinced there is a problem there, but if there is, Omar is culpable.

Poor media management – Why can’t we ever come off as ‘classy’? We always look like buffoons–petty, childish and mismanaged. Apologizing about yesterday doesn’t absolve him. If I come up to your kid and kick him in the shin but follow it up w/ an ‘I’m sorry’, I don’t think you’d be too quick to let me off the hook. This is not an isolated incident. How bout the Randolph fiasco?

As for who should replace him? I don’t think its right to put the onus on fans to pick a replacement or offer solutions. Just because we smell a dead rat inside our house doesn’t mean we should have to tear up the walls to find it.

Sparks has left a new comment on your post “Why Do You Want The New York Mets To Fire Omar Min…“:

You want a reason? Here’s your reason. He has repeatedly not conducted himself with the competence, professionalism, and dignity for which his position calls.

Yesterday, lack of professionalism was reason enough for Minaya to fire Bernazard. The same bar should apply to him. That someone would get in front of a microphone and state he fired someone for inappropriate and unprofessional interpersonal interactions, and then in the middle of the same press conference, question the personal motives of a reporter–by name, and whose reporting proved to be accurate–is the height of irony.

Minaya mishandled the firing of Randolph, he turned yesterday’s press conference into a circus, and baseball-wise, his organization is in a shambles. While you can say specific things are his underlings’ fault and he addressed part of it yesterday, he’s the GM, and that’s where the buck stops. He can certainly and very fairly be held accountable for hiring incompetent people in the first place.

Who do they hire to replace him? Promote the next guy in the chain for the remainder of the season. Long-term plans can wait. While canning Minaya isn’t going to be a magic bullet cure-all, that doesn’t matter. You get the X-rays AFTER you stop the bleeding.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post “Inbox: Minaya-gate“:

What I find interesting is that HR was supposedly already investigating Bernazard, however Omar said he had to think about Rubin’s article because of his past lobbying for a front office position. Something is amiss here. Did Omar not know about the Binghamton incident? How could that be so? He is either an idiot or a liar.

DyHrdMET has left a new comment on your post “New York Mets Fire Tony Bernazard. Press Conferen…“:

I’m still catching up on my blog post reading from earlier today, but I find it funny how everyone was posting what seemed like a simple piece of news for a press conference at 3:30pm today now knowing that it turned into a 3 ring circus.

looking back, you have the best line (so far) – “Only shocking because they didn’t get this one wrong.” you spoke too soon.

I thought the same thing. That’ll teach me.

Keep ’em coming!

I’m mad at Omar for distracting everyone from my Mercury Mets post.

Main Mets Police page
Follow us on twitter @metspolice
Facebook page
send ideas/guest columns to shannon at metspolice.com

July 28, 2009

Why Do You Want The New York Mets To Fire Omar Minaya?

The trendy thing this morning is to say Omar Minaya should be fired.
My question to you is, "Why do you want him fired?"

Is it because of the collapses? That has nothing to do with July.

The lack of organizational depth? That guy got axed yesterday.

The injuries? That's the trainers, the medical staff, and I still
blame the WBC for several of the early season losses.

The losing? You fill out a lineup card with Berroa and Sullivan in it.

Part of complaining and asking for change is offering solutions.

"Fire Omar and get someone in here who…". That's not a solution.
You wanna tell me the next manager should be LaRussa then I will hear
you out.

"Someone who…" is not a solution.

Omar doesn't speak well in press conferences. He did a dumb and mean
thing yesterday. He also apologized.

You and I both had this team going to the playoffs.

If Omar is to lose his job it shouldn't be over yesterday, it should
be because there's a better choice to run the organization in 2010.
I'm still waiting for the writers, bloggers, WFAN and fans of this
blog to tell me who that is.

Sent from my iPhone

July 27, 2009

Inbox: Minaya-gate

Obviously we’re in the middle of another major story…

Trooper York: But this is a day that is going to live in Mets history. Congratulations on one of the most entertaining press conferances in a long time. The Mets always have better press conferances than the Yankees
..

Sparks: You know the saying, “Give him just enough rope to hang himself?” Apparently, Minaya carries around his own spool.

Even if Minaya felt that about Rubin, why bother bringing it up? The ostensible point of this presser was to put the Bernazard episode behind the Mets. Insted, Minaya goes out there and creates an even bigger story. A VP with a bad temper pales to a major league GM picking a feud with a reporter.

In one stroke, Minaya has made himself look foolish, made himself look petty, and made himself even more of a media target. Like all professionals, the reporters are going to look after their own. This moron took what should have been a quiet little announcement and turned it into a full-blown sh!tstorm.

If Minaya is still the GM by the end of August, the Wilpons will have proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that they truly have no shame.
..
Anonymous: This man is a joke. He doesn’t know how to speak publicly and continues to embarass the organization and all Met fans.

The morning papers should be tons of fun. When I woke up Monday morning I was wondering how I would fill column space on Tuesday and actually had some pictures from Wrigley Field scheduled. I guess we’ll save those!

Main Mets Police page
Follow us on twitter @metspolice
Facebook page
send ideas/guest columns to shannon at metspolice.com

July 27, 2009

New York Mets Omar Minaya Apologized, So Let’s Accept The Apology

I listened to the second press conference, the one that suddenly happened at about 6:58, the one you may not know about…and decided to form my own opinion before I read everyone else’s

Omar and Jeff Wilpon appeared and Omar apologized for calling Rubin out in the first press conference. He didn’t apologize for what he said, just where he said it. As with many Minaya press conferences, there was a buzzword to get in – last week it was investigation, earlier today it was something about Tony Bernazard not being likable, and tonight it was “forum.”

I’m just going to talk like the kid from Queens that I am, and that Omar is. Pardon my french.

Omar, you were a douche in the first press conference. Just uncool. We all know that your guy got taken out, so you went swinging.

Then at 6:58 we saw Jeff Wilpon, which to me was a not subtle way of telling the reporters that “the Wilpons” were listening to WFAN all afternoon as they demanded that Jeff make an appearance. So the unspoken message was that Jeff called Omar in the back and told him he messed up.

However, while the Rubin thing was not cool – I respect what you did.

You apologized.

I want to, basically, really apologize for what I said in the forum. That was not a proper forum for me to raise those issues. I. I just feel that, you know, in bringing that up over there, those issues, I don’t think that was right and I want to apologize for that. (Thanks SI Advance – MP)

However, the kid from Queens in me admires that you didn’t (kitten) out. You stood by what you said. Maybe you shouldn’t have said it there, but you didn’t back down from thinking Adam Rubin was trying to get a job. That I can respect.

I have no dog in this fight. I feel bad for Adam Rubin and hope he doesn’t lose his gig over this, and I think asking someone how they got a job in the front office is no different than me asking Matt Cerrone how Metsblog started – does that mean that I’m not good at whatever my real job is (it’s not this) or that I’m somehow out to get someone? No. Rubin should be allowed to explore whatever he thinks will make him happy in his life. Bernazard either did or didn’t do what Rubin wrote, and apparently Bernazard did.

I don’t think Minaya should lose his job over not being smooth in press conferences. The Mets should hire someone who is smooth to handle all interactions with the media. If Minaya is to lose his job it should because the team fails, not because he took a wrong turn in a press conference – and hey Jay Horwitz way to protect your guy!

At the end of the day, this is another Mets disaster. Nothing they do goes right. As I’ve said before, I can still picture the 1939 Mets introducing their big free agent the Iron Horse.

I was going to attach comments to this, but I went longer than I planned – so that will be a separate post.

Main Mets Police page
Follow us on twitter @metspolice
Facebook page
send ideas/guest columns to shannon at metspolice.com