Omar/Manuel Press Conference IGT

Masters of Superiority · 06-17-2008, 01:53 PM

I just HAD to start this thing... There's TONS to discuss before it even starts. It promises to be the most uncomfortable, contentious, entertaining event in Mets-land in quite a long time.

So, how does Omar address the hysterical reporters' questions about the timing? Does he just toss Manuel out there as a human shield and say "this is about Jerry, not about timing."

How uncomfortable will Manuel look, and how far into the conference does this look cross his face where you can actually SEE him wondering why the eff he got involved in this mess?

Sensing the media's anger and (now) sympathy for Willie, do they cut the conference short, or man up and have Jeff AND Omar there to field the barrage of questions about the direction of the team?

Get your popcorn, folks. It's going to be a bloody good time.

ColinHay · 06-17-2008, 01:56 PM

Nah. Old news according to that person from El Paso
Lost during this media circus...

freakzilla11 · 06-17-2008, 01:58 PM

"You know.... you know.... you knowwhatImsayin"

"Thank you, have a good day."

Medfordian Slip · 06-17-2008, 01:58 PM

More importantly MOS - have you seen Willie walking aimlessly around southern California yet?

Masters of Superiority · 06-17-2008, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Medfordian Slip

More importantly MOS - have you seen Willie walking aimlessly around southern California yet?

Actually, I'm in Northern California... But his screams woke me up at around 12:56 PST.

Onda7 · 06-17-2008, 02:05 PM

Man, I am pissed I'll be at work during the PC.

Masters of Superiority · 06-17-2008, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ColinHay

Nah. Old news according to that person from El Paso
Lost during this media circus...

I guess part of the conference will be covering Heilman's two strikeouts. That should kill some time for Omar.

Monrovia Jeff · 06-17-2008, 02:07 PM

you know what would be sweet...Jerry Manuel pulling a Bill Belichick and taking out a piece of paper and handing it to Omar...

"I resign as MGR of the NYM.""

graves9 · 06-17-2008, 02:07 PM

This is will be funnier than any comedy since Airplane. Omar will be grilled and come off looking like the tool he is. I am sure Manuel will be given a hard time as well. I wonder if Tony B will be there? I am sure he'll be lurking in the shadows somewhere.

Medfordian Slip · 06-17-2008, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monrovia Jeff

you know what would be sweet...Jerry Manuel pulling a Bill Belichick and taking aout a piece of paper and handing it to Omar...

"I resign as MGR of the NYM.""

That would rule!

tfc3rid · 06-17-2008, 02:22 PM

Lennon reporting in Newsday that Willie and Rick Peterson are epxected to be leaving the team hotel in a few minutes... I'm guesing that will be like a perp walk, eh?

Oberkfell and Wartham have arrived...

Fonzy13 · 06-17-2008, 02:27 PM

Just so we're all on the same page here, thanks Buster:

The personnel meetings the Mets hold are said by participants to run on for hours, the discussion often turning circular and pointless. And maybe that's when it starts to happen in their organization when they get to the point where the staff members are so beaten down emotionally and intellectually that they don't have the ability to stand up and scream: Are you people crazy? Are you serious? Because this is a really bad idea -- no, no, wait, let's go one step further: It's really just flat-out nuts.

They needed somebody to yell that in the days and hours leading up to the preposterous trades they made in July 2004, when they swapped a 20-year-old left-handed pitcher who could throw 95 mph for a journeyman right-hander who had shown signs of breaking down. When they made the Carlos Delgado deal, they needed a Bill Shatner to scream that they paid five-star prices in salary obligation for Delgado when they really could've made the deal for much less.

In the past month, and especially in the past 96 hours, they needed GM Omar Minaya to bluntly say to everyone in the room that what they proposed to do was embarrassing for the organization, beneath the dignity of any professional business. They needed Minaya to insist they come up with something else.

But instead, the circus played out fully, without the elephants or the tigers but with plenty of clowns lurking in the shadows. Minaya and his assistant, Tony Bernazard, walked around the lobby of the team hotel Monday "like grim reapers," in the eyes of a staff member. And after weeks of leak-fed speculation and boardroom backstabbing and indecision, they did their bidding, fired manager Willie Randolph, pitching coach Rick Peterson and first-base coach Tom Nieto.

Even the writers of "The Sopranos" could not have invented a more recklessly handled hit. The process really started after last season's collapse, when Minaya -- who came to the Mets having been promised full autonomy and, for more than a year, has had all the power of a marionette -- first regressed into lawyer-speak. "Willie is the manager," Minaya said over and over, as if repeating the phrase would somehow give the crafted but flimsy words backbone and fool anyone into thinking that Randolph wasn't one really bad day away from being fired.

When the Mets sputtered in April, the backstabbing began, with Randolph being undermined along the way. Words of Randolph's honest player evaluations in those staff meetings somehow made their way to the ears of players. That left the manager in a brutal position of trying to draw performance out of veterans who heard that behind closed doors the manager wasn't so sure if they had the right stuff anymore. Some on-field staff members doubted whether they could trust the front office.

And when the losing continued, the front-office leaks to the newspapers became rivers of rip-jobs, the leakers inoculated by the fact that they fired first. It's better to blame the manager and his coaches, after all, than to take responsibility. But even after Randolph's demise became a fait accompli, which was sometime in the last days of May, the decision-makers stopped focusing on the change itself and started becoming concerned about properly scripting his firing.

When the Mets finished a road trip with a loss in Colorado on May 25 and had a record of 23-25, the front office already had talked and talked for hours about managerial alternatives, and unenthusiastically decided that Jerry Manuel was likely to be Randolph's replacement. "Everybody is scared to death about this," said one front-office member at the time.

But rather than just firing the manager quickly, there was a very public meeting with Fred and Jeff Wilpon on Memorial Day. Friends of Randolph say he felt like the Wilpons were waiting for him to take himself down, with some impetuous or angry remark; if he wanted to quit, they wouldn't stand in the way. But the Mets wouldn't fire him -- not on a holiday because that wouldn't be the classy thing to do, firing a manager on a holiday. So Randolph walked out and sat side by side in a news conference with Minaya, who continued with the lawyer-speak. They had to pretend everything was good and settled, and that the organization was moving forward.

That wasn't true, of course; Randolph remained just one losing streak away from getting dumped, and the losing streak came last week. Along the way, the Mets' front-office whisperers generated the same kind of leaks that came before Steve Phillips was fired, before Art Howe was fired, before Jim Duquette was shoved aside -- the same kind of leaks that came after the Scott Kazmir trade went bad. Not since the days of the vintage Steinbrenner Yankees has any team leaked the way the Mets leak. By Friday night, the papers reported that Randolph was out, and by Saturday night, the papers reported that Peterson and Nieto were going to be fired.

There was just one last vexing problem: Telling the news to Randolph, Peterson and Nieto directly. The Mets' front office could've done that Saturday, as they sat for hours through a rain delay. Or they could've done the job Sunday. But somehow, the Mets' front office seemed to shrink from the idea of firing Randolph on Father's Day.

By Sunday morning, Randolph -- who might or might not be a great manager but is unquestionably a man of dignity -- almost seemed to be laughing at the absurdity of the situation. He chuckled as he told reporters that, sure, he thought about the possibility he might be packing for a West Coast road trip that he might not last all the way through.

The Mets won the second game of the doubleheader Sunday, just as they had won on Friday, and then Randolph boarded a plane to the West Coast with his coaching staff and flew all the way to California. The Mets won again Monday, their third win in four games -- and that's when Minaya and Bernazard made their move, capping the employment of Randolph and two coaches after midnight. As if nobody would notice.

The announcement came shortly after 3 a.m. ET, but I'd bet that Randolph probably hadn't stopped laughing by then. It's not his problem anymore. The Mets' circus will go on, until somebody stands up and tells them that you cannot possibly do business this way -- and until somebody actually listens.

This was an act of cowardice, Mike Vaccaro writes. The way it was handled was cowardly, Jim Baumbach writes. Step right up and see the saddest show in town, Bill Rhoden writes. One of the players said he was in shock.

Masters of Superiority · 06-17-2008, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tfc3rid

Lennon reporting in Newsday that Willie and Rick Peterson are epxected to be leaving the team hotel in a few minutes... I'm guesing that will be like a perp walk, eh?

Oberkfell and Wartham have arrived...

Ugh... just an ugly day, all around...

Following this team is really like a lifetime membership to the Jerry Springer club.

A$$hole from El Paso · 06-17-2008, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Following this team is really like a lifetime membership to the Jerry Springer club.

Well said. Maybe they could do a promo day when the fans could receive the mustache and glasses a'la Bobby Valentine so they could watch the games without having to reveal their identities to anyone else.

So what's the press conference going to cover that hasn't already been said? You're not going to hear the truth. They've had over 12 hours to spin it already:

"We were not moving forward at the rate which we believed we should given the personnel on the field. We wish Willie and the coaches well in their future endeavors. Jerry Manuel has our complete vote of confidence."

Or words to that effect.

kingdiggler · 06-17-2008, 04:27 PM

Willie says it was racial. The email was sent at 3:11 in the am. The 11th letter of the alphabet is K, K (11) 3 times is KKK. The Man strikes again.

06-17-2008, 01:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
Masters of Superiority Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 1,493	Omar/Manuel Press Conference IGT I just HAD to start this thing... There's TONS to discuss before it even starts. It promises to be the most uncomfortable, contentious, entertaining event in Mets-land in quite a long time. So, how does Omar address the hysterical reporters' questions about the timing? Does he just toss Manuel out there as a human shield and say "this is about Jerry, not about timing." How uncomfortable will Manuel look, and how far into the conference does this look cross his face where you can actually SEE him wondering why the eff he got involved in this mess? Sensing the media's anger and (now) sympathy for Willie, do they cut the conference short, or man up and have Jeff AND Omar there to field the barrage of questions about the direction of the team? Get your popcorn, folks. It's going to be a bloody good time. __________________ __________________________________ "Here's the pitch, slow and straight... All I have to do is swing and I'm a hero... But I'm a zero..." -- Weezer, "Perfect Situation"... and the 2008 Mets

06-17-2008, 01:58 PM	#4 (permalink)
Medfordian Slip Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Omar - please get a real bullpen and an outfielder Posts: 1,745	More importantly MOS - have you seen Willie walking aimlessly around southern California yet? __________________ Cramped, dirty, smelly...Yankee Stadium is every bit the dump Shea Stadium is, only with less room to move around. Good riddance to the House Steinbrenner rebuilt. Busyman

06-17-2008, 02:07 PM	#8 (permalink)
Monrovia Jeff Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Currently in Monrovia, Liberia, but home in North Dallas Posts: 216	you know what would be sweet...Jerry Manuel pulling a Bill Belichick and taking out a piece of paper and handing it to Omar... "I resign as MGR of the NYM."" Last edited by Monrovia Jeff : 06-17-2008 at 02:16 PM.

06-17-2008, 02:27 PM	#12 (permalink)
Fonzy13 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: WAF Supreme Commander Posts: 3,542	Just so we're all on the same page here, thanks Buster: The personnel meetings the Mets hold are said by participants to run on for hours, the discussion often turning circular and pointless. And maybe that's when it starts to happen in their organization when they get to the point where the staff members are so beaten down emotionally and intellectually that they don't have the ability to stand up and scream: Are you people crazy? Are you serious? Because this is a really bad idea -- no, no, wait, let's go one step further: It's really just flat-out nuts. They needed somebody to yell that in the days and hours leading up to the preposterous trades they made in July 2004, when they swapped a 20-year-old left-handed pitcher who could throw 95 mph for a journeyman right-hander who had shown signs of breaking down. When they made the Carlos Delgado deal, they needed a Bill Shatner to scream that they paid five-star prices in salary obligation for Delgado when they really could've made the deal for much less. In the past month, and especially in the past 96 hours, they needed GM Omar Minaya to bluntly say to everyone in the room that what they proposed to do was embarrassing for the organization, beneath the dignity of any professional business. They needed Minaya to insist they come up with something else. But instead, the circus played out fully, without the elephants or the tigers but with plenty of clowns lurking in the shadows. Minaya and his assistant, Tony Bernazard, walked around the lobby of the team hotel Monday "like grim reapers," in the eyes of a staff member. And after weeks of leak-fed speculation and boardroom backstabbing and indecision, they did their bidding, fired manager Willie Randolph, pitching coach Rick Peterson and first-base coach Tom Nieto. Even the writers of "The Sopranos" could not have invented a more recklessly handled hit. The process really started after last season's collapse, when Minaya -- who came to the Mets having been promised full autonomy and, for more than a year, has had all the power of a marionette -- first regressed into lawyer-speak. "Willie is the manager," Minaya said over and over, as if repeating the phrase would somehow give the crafted but flimsy words backbone and fool anyone into thinking that Randolph wasn't one really bad day away from being fired. When the Mets sputtered in April, the backstabbing began, with Randolph being undermined along the way. Words of Randolph's honest player evaluations in those staff meetings somehow made their way to the ears of players. That left the manager in a brutal position of trying to draw performance out of veterans who heard that behind closed doors the manager wasn't so sure if they had the right stuff anymore. Some on-field staff members doubted whether they could trust the front office. And when the losing continued, the front-office leaks to the newspapers became rivers of rip-jobs, the leakers inoculated by the fact that they fired first. It's better to blame the manager and his coaches, after all, than to take responsibility. But even after Randolph's demise became a fait accompli, which was sometime in the last days of May, the decision-makers stopped focusing on the change itself and started becoming concerned about properly scripting his firing. When the Mets finished a road trip with a loss in Colorado on May 25 and had a record of 23-25, the front office already had talked and talked for hours about managerial alternatives, and unenthusiastically decided that Jerry Manuel was likely to be Randolph's replacement. "Everybody is scared to death about this," said one front-office member at the time. But rather than just firing the manager quickly, there was a very public meeting with Fred and Jeff Wilpon on Memorial Day. Friends of Randolph say he felt like the Wilpons were waiting for him to take himself down, with some impetuous or angry remark; if he wanted to quit, they wouldn't stand in the way. But the Mets wouldn't fire him -- not on a holiday because that wouldn't be the classy thing to do, firing a manager on a holiday. So Randolph walked out and sat side by side in a news conference with Minaya, who continued with the lawyer-speak. They had to pretend everything was good and settled, and that the organization was moving forward. That wasn't true, of course; Randolph remained just one losing streak away from getting dumped, and the losing streak came last week. Along the way, the Mets' front-office whisperers generated the same kind of leaks that came before Steve Phillips was fired, before Art Howe was fired, before Jim Duquette was shoved aside -- the same kind of leaks that came after the Scott Kazmir trade went bad. Not since the days of the vintage Steinbrenner Yankees has any team leaked the way the Mets leak. By Friday night, the papers reported that Randolph was out, and by Saturday night, the papers reported that Peterson and Nieto were going to be fired. There was just one last vexing problem: Telling the news to Randolph, Peterson and Nieto directly. The Mets' front office could've done that Saturday, as they sat for hours through a rain delay. Or they could've done the job Sunday. But somehow, the Mets' front office seemed to shrink from the idea of firing Randolph on Father's Day. By Sunday morning, Randolph -- who might or might not be a great manager but is unquestionably a man of dignity -- almost seemed to be laughing at the absurdity of the situation. He chuckled as he told reporters that, sure, he thought about the possibility he might be packing for a West Coast road trip that he might not last all the way through. The Mets won the second game of the doubleheader Sunday, just as they had won on Friday, and then Randolph boarded a plane to the West Coast with his coaching staff and flew all the way to California. The Mets won again Monday, their third win in four games -- and that's when Minaya and Bernazard made their move, capping the employment of Randolph and two coaches after midnight. As if nobody would notice. The announcement came shortly after 3 a.m. ET, but I'd bet that Randolph probably hadn't stopped laughing by then. It's not his problem anymore. The Mets' circus will go on, until somebody stands up and tells them that you cannot possibly do business this way -- and until somebody actually listens. This was an act of cowardice, Mike Vaccaro writes. The way it was handled was cowardly, Jim Baumbach writes. Step right up and see the saddest show in town, Bill Rhoden writes. One of the players said he was in shock. __________________ We Are **ed! (WAF) The WAF Pledge of Allegiance** Under water grottos, caverns Filled with apes That eat figs. Stepping on the figs That the apes Eat, they crunch. The apes howl, bare Their fangs, dance . . Yes. We. Do.

06-17-2008, 04:27 PM	#15 (permalink)
kingdiggler Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Getting fat off the governments teet Posts: 4,185	Willie says it was racial. The email was sent at 3:11 in the am. The 11th letter of the alphabet is K, K (11) 3 times is KKK. The Man strikes again. __________________ "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists." Barack Obama It ain't socialism, it's his thug thizzle.

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06-17-2008, 01:56 PM	#2 (permalink)
ColinHay Banned Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 89	Nah. Old news according to that person from El Paso Lost during this media circus...

06-17-2008, 02:05 PM	#6 (permalink)
Onda7 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Blue Royster Cult Posts: 1,357	Man, I am pissed I'll be at work during the PC.

06-17-2008, 02:07 PM	#9 (permalink)
graves9 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Hard at work Posts: 5,430	This is will be funnier than any comedy since Airplane. Omar will be grilled and come off looking like the tool he is. I am sure Manuel will be given a hard time as well. I wonder if Tony B will be there? I am sure he'll be lurking in the shadows somewhere.

06-17-2008, 02:22 PM	#11 (permalink)
tfc3rid Senior Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 850	Lennon reporting in Newsday that Willie and Rick Peterson are epxected to be leaving the team hotel in a few minutes... I'm guesing that will be like a perp walk, eh? Oberkfell and Wartham have arrived...

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