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VeteranIf you don’t live in the New York area, then you probably missed what happened earlier this afternoon. The New York Mets, and more specifically, Omar Minaya, held a press conference to announce that they had fired VP of Player Development, Tony Bernazard. While that was supposed to be the story of the conference, Minaya apparently went to the Alex Rodriguez school of press conferences, and instead of cleaning up the situation, made it infinitely worse.
It was one thing that Minaya was scrambling around trying to figure out what he was going to say, and in doing so, seemed to keep digging himself a deeper and deeper hole. Yet just when you thought it was awkward, the Mets GM made it that much more so by calling out Adam Rubin of the New York Daily News, the writer who broke the story.
Minaya said he was essentially caught off-guard by the story because Rubin had asked about working in player development the past couple of years. He went so far as to say that Rubin actually asked both he and Bernazard about jobs with the Mets. I’m not sure if Minaya realizes how big of an accusation that this was, but if he did, well shame on him, and if he didn’t, well shame on him again.
It’s bad enough that the Mets as a team are in disarray, but to bring something else into the equation, something like this, well you have to wonder the intelligence level of this man. If he thought for an instance that accusing Rubin of these allegations would somehow deflect some of the attention off Bernazard and the team, well he was right on one end. No one cares about Bernazard right now.
Minaya should now realize that he’s in for a real fight, and I don’t mean one in the papers, I mean a potential fight in the courts. What Minaya said could be viewed as slander if he can’t support his words with evidence. And if that’s the case, the Mets and their fans can now thank him for exacerbating their problems.
About a year ago I compared Omar Minaya and the Mets ownership to Isiah Thomas and the Knicks ownership for the way they ran their respective teams. If you remember correctly, Thomas, the Knicks, and Madison Square Garden faced an embarrassing lawsuit in which they had to pay $11.6 million. While the two cases are certainly different, the similarities in the teams and how they’re run continue to go down the same path.
Minaya and the Mets had to fire Bernazard essentially for stupidity. The same fate may now be in line for Minaya, and rightfully so.
Jeff is certainly a problem since he brought in Omar, but the guy who was allowed to make this mess without a doubt was Omar Minaya. He should have been gone a long time ago, especially after the ridiculous signing of Oliver P. He is absolutely out of his mind for that move. And they should have traded the problem child, Jose Reyes before he became injuried since he behaves like a child and has no respect. This kid does not have the tradition values of the players of yesteryear. I do not care how good he may be or may become, if he is without class, then get rid of him. And for those of you who say, "it was the injuries that doomed this team," you have to be kidding me? Did you see what happened the last four years? This team is a tease, and nothing more. The reason the Philly's win is because they have a solid team without classly, and no heart players. They do more to win with less talent than the Mets. This team is in shambles all thanks to Omar and the Wilpons.
Jwelhaus06:13 PM EST