Have I missed something? When did James L. Dolan purchase the Mets?
Ok, the MSG Boss hasn’t reached out into Queens, but with the way the Mets are acting these days with their front office, you might think Isiah Thomas is running the team.
Sure, Thomas is safely away from New York starting his gig as coach of Florida International, but Mets VP of player development Tony Bernazard has become the New Isiah with his antics over the past few weeks.
Let’s review: Bernazard proceeded to berate a low level Mets employee because a scout dared to sit in his seat. He then challenged a bunch of Double-A players to a fight in Binghamton taking off his shirt because they weren’t playing up to his standards.
Now, we find out he got into a shouting match with Francisco Rodriguez last Friday because Mini-Zeke was berating the rest of the Mets bullpen.
Yet he keeps his job.
Actually with the Dolan-like way the Wilpons are running things, Bernazard is a sexual harassment suit away from a promotion.
Even without these tough guy antics, Bernazard needs to go. Since being hired in December 2004, he has done nothing to develop the Mets farm system. His prospects are mediocre at best and the only guy he drafted that shows any chance of being a star is Mike Pelfrey, who was the ninth pick overall in 2005.
And because Mini-Zeke wanted to make the farm system his own, he was the one who had the Mets jettison Brian Bannister, Matt Lindstrom, and Heath Bell for nothing in return.
From what I have heard from various people around the Mets, what’s written in the papers is correct. Bernazard is a bad guy, whose people skills have made him a number of enemies around baseball. We have already seen Mini-Zeke in action in 2005 when Carlos Delgado chose the Marlins over the Mets because Bernazard played the Latin card a little too much.
Yet, that is ok with the Mets because Mini-Zeke has become a modern day Rasputin for Jeffrey Wilpon, blatantly going over Omar Minaya’s head to get his way. We saw this last year as Bernazard lobbied for the Mets to fire Willie Randolph.
Yet with all this evidence, Minaya looked like a fool yesterday, saying he wants to “investigate.”
“I’ve talked to him and I’ll continue to talk to him,” Minaya said. “We’ll sit down and talk this weekend. I’ve notified him we’ll investigate these things and then I’ll sit down with our owners and ask how are we going to handle this.”
The Mets need to do the right thing now and fire Bernazard. This is a bad year for the club and is only going to get worse if Mini-Zeke is allowed to stay. The Mets need to rid themselves of this cancer. Unfortunately, the Wilpons seem to have taken a crash course in the James L. Dolan School of Sports Ownership, so as of right now, this thug is allowed to stay.
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