Willie Watch: Wilpons Don’t Return His Calls?

Howie Rose mentioned in the first inning that Willie said the Wilpons wouldn’t return his calls. VERY interesting.

Good stuff out of the SNY guys last night – Keith said he wanted to be a Dodger but that his father convinced him to stay with the 1984 Mets because Hernandez Senior had watched minor league games and thought the Mets had some good prospects coming.

WCBS lead news story this morning is will Willie go.

Wouldn’t shock me if there’s a press conference at Shea on Tuesday. Wouldn’t shick me if acting manager Jerry Manuel manages Monday night.

And since I have nothing to add that I haven’t said 50 times (fire Willie, hire Mazzilli) I’ll leave you with a link which is obviously a farce: Girardi is no more of a Met than Willie.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly….The Mets!: For Your Perusal…. A WATP!

>Willie Watch – Flashback

>Willie was hired by the Mets in November 2004. Prior to Omar hiring him, Willie had already turned down an opportunity to manage in the minors with the Yankees, and had interviewed with a dozen other teams for their managerial openings. He had even interviewed with the Mets in 2002 but was turned down in favor of Art Howe because he was “unprepared” to manage (according to the NY Times).

After the hiring was announced, Flip Bondy wrote a piece in the NY Daily News. In it is an interesting quote from Omar:

“People say (Randolph) didn’t interview well. An interview is overrated. You have to have the courage to give someone an opportunity. No matter who you pick, you don’t know how he will do.”

So interviews are overrated? How else do you determine if someone with no experience is capable of doing the job?

I also find it interesting that Art Howe was at one point considered better than Willie – that says a lot.

Finally, if you have to have the courage to give someone an opportunity, where is the courage to say that person has squandered that opportunity?

Flip Bondy Article in The Daily News

Willie Watch – Flashback

Willie was hired by the Mets in November 2004. Prior to Omar hiring him, Willie had already turned down an opportunity to manage in the minors with the Yankees, and had interviewed with a dozen other teams for their managerial openings. He had even interviewed with the Mets in 2002 but was turned down in favor of Art Howe because he was “unprepared” to manage (according to the NY Times).

After the hiring was announced, Flip Bondy wrote a piece in the NY Daily News. In it is an interesting quote from Omar:

“People say (Randolph) didn’t interview well. An interview is overrated. You have to have the courage to give someone an opportunity. No matter who you pick, you don’t know how he will do.”

So interviews are overrated? How else do you determine if someone with no experience is capable of doing the job?

I also find it interesting that Art Howe was at one point considered better than Willie – that says a lot.

Finally, if you have to have the courage to give someone an opportunity, where is the courage to say that person has squandered that opportunity?

Flip Bondy Article in The Daily News

>Indiana Jones And The Big Apple

>The Mets Police salute famous New York baseball fan Short Round.

Not sure where he got this hat – it has Yankee coloring, but a Giants logo. (Feel free to correct me.) Maybe he liked both teams. Maybe I’m not an expert in hats.

Here’s some Giants hats here but don’t tell Fred Wilpon.

http://www.dugout-memories.com/newgia.html

>Mike Piazza, Dodger Great

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Good piece in the L.A. Times about one of the great Dodgers of all time.

The great ones should not bid farewell via e-mail. Mike Piazza deserved to tip his cap and bask in the applause, secure in his place as one of the Dodgers’ brightest stars.His place would have been between Tom Lasorda and Sandy Koufax, on opening day, at the end of the Dodgers’ stirring parade of players through the decades. Dodger Stadium went nuts when Koufax appeared, and the place would have gone only slightly less berserk with Piazza in the house.

It is difficult, even to this day, to make peace with the idea that Piazza did not play out his career with the Dodgers, that they traded perhaps the greatest hitting catcher in history — and Lasorda’s godson, no less. The Dodger Way was no more. It is a decade later, and the Dodgers have yet to recover the tradition, the loyalty and the championships.