Hopefully this “new and improved” Mets team keeps it going in Atlanta. It’s funny how the swing of emotion goes from the dumper to total elation in this city. As great as it was to see the total ass kicking the Mets administered to the Highlanders this team can’t let up. I’ll be more impressed if Willie’s Guys leave the Ted with 3 of 4 in the W column.
I read the piece by Ian O’Connor on Willie Randolph and I am happy that Willie hates the criticism and the fact that he feels he is in charge of his clubhouse and that thru O’Connor Willie showed some fight in his comments but I’m not happy that Willie played the race card. Are there Mets fan out there who are against Willie because he’s black? Sure there are. But Willie has to understand that the vast majority of the criticism towards him is due to the lackluster performance of this season and the collapse of last year. Randolph can spin the fact that he is a better manager than Art Howe but that’s not really saying much. The coaches he used as an example were not very good ones in Herm Edwards and Isaiah Thomas as both lasted much longer than they should have. If Willie wants to compare himself to anyone it would be Tom Coughlin. Coughlin is as loud as Willie is quiet but Coughlin was raked over the coals as much as any coach/manager in this town and the last time I looked Coughlin was as white as me. To paint all Mets fans with a racist brush is dead wrong. You want love Willie? Just have this team bust it’s ass like they did this weekend and the love will flow.
As bad as the home run call was last night lost in the controversy was the awful call on Saturday when Carlos Beltran threw Derek Jeter out at second base on a hit. Jeter slid way short of the base and unbelievably second base ump Alfonso Marquez called him safe. That was more embarrassing than the botched home run call.
What made the screw up on Delgado’s homer was that third base ump Mike Reilly called it right as a home run but home plate ump Bob Davidson (maybe watching Johnny Dammon wave it as foul) over turned the call. At least Davidson was man enough to say he fucked up but it’s time to think seriously about instant replay especially for the post season.
I know it’s in vogue to rip Joe Morgan for his awful announcing but truth be told both he and Jon Miller are atrocious. Jon Miller announces that Rick Sutcliffe will be back in the TV booth tonight for ESPN as he deals with colon cancer. Instead of wishing Sutcliffe well, Morgan goes on a rant on how Sutcliffe owes him big time for picking up the games that Sutcliffe missed while he took cancer treatments. What an asshole. I’m sure Morgan thought he was being cute but Miller knew he was being a dick and tried to bail him out by saying how glad we all are the Sutcliffe is back but Morgan was still on this he owes me schtick. That plus his clueless analysis makes Sunday Night Baseball close to unwatchable.
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This post was written by kranepool on May 19, 2008
Steve…
That was an uncomfortable moment with Morgan last night. And Miller is like Forest Gump. They really make a game hard to watch.
Totally agree that they need to use this to gain momentum and put some W’s together. It was nice to kick Highlander ass, but let’s face it, they are short-handed and in a slump. No reason to start taking bows. Go 12 of 15, and then we can say that something has been accomplished. It all starts with our favorite ex-Met on the hill tomorrow. I want that game badly!
And to the point of Sunday night baseball, your schedule has 6/1 as a day game, but NOPE! ESPN just made it a Sunday night game. So, now we can all have another short night of sleep and have to listen to those guys. I really liked Morgan as a player, speed, power, defense…But he is not so good in the booth and Miller is nothing short of a bufoon.
As a Die Hard Met Fan , I still have a Bad feeling about the Team this year with Williot at the Helm . Yeah we Swept the Yanks , but this guy still can’t Manage his way out of a Paper Bag . I will not be surprised if he is gone by Sept. . This Team deserves better than him . Dare I say Bobby V maybe ? ……Hmm…..
Interesting. Did you read George Will’s column over the weekend? He said that Frank Robinson had truly achieved racial equality when he’d been treated like every other manager and been fired.
When, in 1975, Frank Robinson became Major League Baseball’s first African-American manager, with the Cleveland Indians, that was an important milestone. But an even more important one came two years later, when the Indians fired him. That was real equality: Losing one’s job is part of the job description of major-league managers, because sacking the manager is one of the few changes a floundering team can make immediately. So, in a sense, Robinson had not really arrived until he was told to leave. Then he was just like hundreds of managers before him.
There’s something to what Will’s writing there. I’m sure there are Met fans who don’t like the fact Randolph’s black, but I would bet there are a LOT MORE who don’t like the fact that (a) he’s an ex-Yankee (b) publicly non-committal and MOSTLY (c) not winning as much as they think the Mets should. That’s why Met fans are on Willie’s case. They want to win and they (many, not all Met fans) think Willie is NOT the man to lead them to victory.
If the Mets had won in 2006 or if the collapse had not happened we would not be having this discussion.
Racism is out there in America, though things have improved a lot during the past 54 years I have been around. A lot. The Barack Obama candidacy being led by the under 30 voters is one of the most positive things i have seen in a long time…a new generation that is just more tolerant. We fought for this and it is happening.
I do think that subconsciously many white Americans believe that white is the norm, white baseball players are the norm…the Ruths and Gehrigs and DiMaggios,and their contemporary versions…and they agree that it was the right move to open the doors to blacks, but why?, mostly because it upgraded the level of the game, bringing in the likes of Jackie Robinson, Campanella, Mays, Aaron, Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson. And similarly, the Latin Americans made their case between the foul lines too, with the excellence of Clemente, Carew, Aparicio, Marichal, so many more.
And so these players have been welcomed, generally so, but what about when the black or Latin player is just ordinary? For many the main logic to diversify racially was not the human rights argument, but that it brought in these fantastic players, enhanced the level of play, and particularly for one’s own team.
So when the black or Latin player under-performs, for some it is like, what, why did they bring this guy from Venezuela or Korea, not even speaking decent English, just to do this? We could give his spot to some earnest white kid struggling in the minors and put more emphasis on home-grown talent, the kids we need to develop for the Olympics and the World Baseball Classic, the ones that came up through our Little League and sandlot systems, the kids who might work best as role models for our own children…see what i mean? It is a bit of a double standard that African Americans and foreign born players may have to contend with, and white players not. And so black and Latin players probably have to deal with less tolerance of their slumps or failures or whatever. At least some of the time.
That said, Willie should, as you say, Steve, keep that card in the deck. He has had a great run, he has enjoyed organizational and fan support since arriving at Shea, but the gears have started to grind a bit, beginning the second half of last season. He has a team poised to make a move, capable of it, and they may need a more aggressive approach than he is providing.
As Eagle points out, managers arrive and inevitably depart. Those that fail to fulfill expectations tread on the thin ice, whatever their race or ethnicity.
If the team is floundering at mid-season, I say make a move. And for a team like Los Mets, how about bringing in a manager who is, like our city, bi-lingual, bi-cultural?
David,
And for a team like Los Mets, how about bringing in a manager who is, like our city, bi-lingual, bi-cultural?
I don’t care if the manager is multi-lingual, multi-cutural, multi-gendered or whatever. He (or she) must win. Lots of soccer managers in Europe thrive managing teams of many languages and races and where the manager can barely speak to more than one or two players. The Irish soccer team has had three failed Irish managers in a row, following the success they had with an English manager. Recently they hired an Italian who barely speaks English to manage a team with no Italian speakers.
I’d prefer if the Mets kept Randolph, but I wouldn’t care if the Mets got Manny Acta, Felipe Alou, Phil Garner, Frank Robinson, Ken Oberkfell, or Hillary Clinton (you know they’d all run out the pop-ups with her on the bench). I want the team to win.
As said in the original post (more or less), racism may be an issue in America, but it has nothing to do with the wildly obvious fact that Willie Randolph is simply a poor baseball manager. Not a poor black manager, or a poor white manager, or a poor Oriental manager, or a poor left-handed, three-legged, blind, autistic manager. He is a poor manager.
Race has no place in judging anyone, either positively or negatively. A black man is not innately a good athlete simply because of the color of his skin; an oriental woman is not automatically smart because of the shape of her eyes.
Language and culture, too, have no bearing on a baseball manager’s abilities. The only thing that matters in this situation is baseball. What good is a Spanish-speaking manager if he has all the baseball savvy of Art Howe?
Color-blind hiring means hiring the best-qualified person for the job. Sometimes that means hiring the White Guy, like Bobby Valentine for the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan. Those using race or color as a “get out of jail free” should be ashamed.
By the way … how many of you readers knew from my writing that I’m an Oriental? Surprise.
Let’s Go Mets.
Yeah, just saw these last two comments whole week later! Thanks for sharing the ideas.
Just to clarify, hiring a bilingual manager would not to make some token affirmative action gesture, or to show favoritism for a racial or ethnic group, but rather, it would be to enhance communication. IBobby Valentine speaks some Japanese, that makes him a more viable candidate in Japan than otherwise. If Willie Randolph spoke some spanish, maybe he could have more of a presence with an under-performing Latin player.