Amazin’ Mess: Mets Way off Base with Willie

Willie Randolph got the shaft. Plain and simple. You don’t keep an employee hanging for weeks, then fire him.

If Jeff Wilpon, Omar Minaya and the rest of the Mets brass really wanted to fire Randolph, they should have let him go following last September’s colossal collapse when they below the division to the Phillies.

The Mets decided to bring Willie back for another season. That’s fine. But once they continued the death spiral this year and speculation about Randolph’s firing intensified, Minaya should have pulled the trigger.

Instead they dragged things out, fueled even more fan and media speculation, then fired him in the middle of the night under cover of darkness in Southern California, 3,000 miles from home.

“And in the history of New York baseball, there has not been a more cowardly, indecent, undignified or ill-conceived firing of a manager,” said Bill Madden, baseball scribe for the New York Daily News.

That’s saying something when you consider some of the other memorable New York managerial firings. Does George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin ring a bell?

Good luck with these Mutts, Jerry Manuel. The Mets once again proved they’re second-class citizens in New York.