Randolph Takes Fall For Minaya Shortcomings
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

On April 30, 1973, just after the congressional testimony of a White House counsel, John Dean, had dragged the Watergate scandal to President Nixon’s office doorstep, the president asked for the resignations of two of his closest advisers: the chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, and the domestic adviser, John Ehrlichman. Nixon hoped that by sacrificing these men he might short-circuit the growing political crisis. It didn’t work. Nixon himself was forced to resign just more than a year later, on August 8, 1974. Yesterday, Mets general manager Omar Minaya tried the same tactic with manager Willie Randolph, but it won’t save him anymore than it did Nixon.
The affable, outgoing Minaya is no brooding, Nixonian figure, but the timing of Randolph’s termination smacks of desperation. Randolph was not a great manager, but he deserved a better fate. Forget the awkward timing, the pointless trip to California. Those things show at worst a lack of class, at best a lack of decision on Minaya’s part. Giving all involved the benefit of the doubt, those aspects of the termination reflect ineptitude rather than maliciousness. The real problem is that the team is a failure, and the reasons for it have little to do with Randolph.
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Minaya’s own incoherent explanation for the firing during yesterday’s press conference did little to clarify why he felt that Jerry Manuel would somehow be able to do more to electrify the team’s roster than Randolph had. Manuel is a more animated personality, and may show more emotion than the mannequin-like Randolph would have, but even if Manuel can light up like the Las Vegas Strip, he won’t restore youth to Carlos Delgado, or make Luis Castillo and Brian Schneider productive hitters. It won’t transform the weak corner outfielders who have substituted for the frequently injured Moises Alou and Ryan Church into Mookie Wilson and Darryl Strawberry. The change is at best a paper palliative, a transaction that confuses mere action with an actual cure for what ails the team.
“I think we’ve been in this job status situation pretty much too long,” Minaya said yesterday. “I felt that it was not fair to the team, it was not fair to Willie Randolph, it was not fair to the organization to have this hanging, this cloud over whether his status … I decided that I had to have closure to this.”
This would be a more convincing explanation had Minaya not generated that cloud himself, abetted by leaks from within the Mets organization that suggested that the team had settled on Manuel days ago. Beginning Friday, Minaya publicly supported Randolph, adding that he also had the support of ownership, then pointedly omitted a statement of support after Sunday’s game. Between Friday, when the Mets won, and Sunday, when they split a doubleheader with the offensively superior Rangers, the only thing that happened to the Mets was a rainout.
“How many times have we fallen behind … and not come back? That’s a trademark of something wrong,” Minaya complained yesterday. And yet, the Mets nearly did come back in the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader, scoring five runs in the eighth and ninth innings to fall one run short. The last out was made by Damion Easley, another ancient Met whose roster spot should be held by the kind of younger, more able player that Minaya has been unable to supply. The Mets don’t have a Rusty Staub to pinch-hit in those situations. In fact, Easley was in the game because he had pinch-hit for the even less potent Chavez. No doubt if Randolph had Danny Heep on his bench he would have called on him, but given the total absence of Heep or Heep-like hitters on the Mets roster, it is difficult to fault Randolph for failing to use them.
Having come close to redeeming the first game of the doubleheader, the Mets proceeded to win the second game, a coming from behind in and of itself, and then defeated a superior Angels team on Monday.
Randolph went to the chop with the club just one game under .500. It may yet revive. Given the presence of John Maine and Johan Santana, the team is one Oliver Perez hot streak (as unlikely as that might seem) away from getting good pitching in three of five starts. Even the Mets’ depleted offense might be able to make up some ground given just slightly better pitching than the team’s 4.8 runs allowed a game in the last 30 contests. During that same period, the Mets have scored 4.8 runs a game. In essence, the team’s offense and defense have been locked in a tie. If either shows the slightest improvement, the team will appear to take a great leap forward — though it is doubtful, given the blunt tools on hand, that the leap will last long enough to carry the Mets into the postseason.
If Jerry Manuel is the beneficiary of that improvement, he will have proved himself to be a luckier manager than Randolph, but not necessarily a better one. Nor will it absolve Minaya of creating a roster that couldn’t survive the slightest injury, undermining his manager, and then calling the uncertainty surrounding the man the reason for his firing.
Mr. Goldman writes the Pinstriped Bible for yesnetwork.com and is the author of “Forging Genius,” a biography of Casey Stengel.