"Willie had to go! Team has a $140 million payroll and they're playing under .500! To say it had anything to do with race is ridiculous!"
"With last years collapse and the inconsistancies which have played out over the course of the first half, anybody's job would've been in jeopardy; Black, White, Yellow, Blue; Whatever!"
"It had nothing to do with race. In the Mets you have a world championship calaber team. Yes the team is as much to blame for it as the coach is, and we must hold Minaya accountable as well. But the manager has always been the first to go, and Willie's time was up."
"Give me a break! The man who fired him was Dominican!"
.............................................................................
So Willie Randolph finally received the pink slip today (3am here in NY, midnight on the West Coast where he received orders to pack it up). And the quotes you read above (all mine *sorta -irony by the way is a literary device-) are the most common examples of what is going around the court of public opinion here and in the Baseball world. All statements with merit yet debatable on the issue of whether race had anything to do with Willie's fate.
Make no mistake about it.. Willie Randolph's status as Manager of the New York Mets was one which over the past few months has shaded over everybody, reguardless of race. He didn't have a dark cloud over him.. it was more like a forecast of passing clouds *lighting up, then darkening your face/ lighting up, then darkening your face. Mets rake the Yankees and for a week or two are on their glory, then lose three in a row to the Padres and skid for two weeks. Even here in my crib the consensus began to lean towards an inevitable goodbye! That's just how it is in professional sports today; the players are on top of the pecking order-much too valuable (monetarily) and often bounded to the team by contracts every slugger to ever drag spikes across the diamond needs to lay flowers on Curt Floods grave for forever securing them.
But was it Willie's time YET?
I am going to have to say no!
Now stepping outside of my analysis of this whole situation and considering it at a surface level it may sound a bit rediculous. But that is only because the 'surface level' has been influenced by the (Notorious New York media's) tightening of the leash on Willie for some time now, and so naturally, there has been this build up of anxiety amongst the Mets faithful over Willie's status. AND THAT FOLKS.. is where the race premise for Willie's down fall can no doubt be attributed.
-Is Major League Baseball an organization filled with talent of all cultures, colors, and features/body types amongst men? YES
-Is the New York Mets team comprised of a 'minority' majority? YES it is
-Did the Mets brass not hire the FIRST 'minority' GM to head the front office (Omar Minaya) and Willie as one of the first 10 black managers in MLB's century+ old history (Larry Doby, Maury Wills, Don Baylor, Cito Gaston, Lloyd McClendon, Dusty Baker, Jerry Manuel, Willie Randolph and Frank Robinson)?
No doubt! and that is why i have crossed over from the Bronx in allieging with the amazins!
When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 it could be said that the game solidified itself as America's Pastime. It lives amongst the 20th Centuries 5 most recognized moments for the assimilation of African Americans in the U.S. mainstream culture. And none of the other three mainstream sports (not Hockey, not Football, Basketball has a large black presence but i can count the number of people of color whom arent African American on my hands and feet) has such international participation on the American field of play. Yet i think we should all agree Baseball has a lonnnnng way to go! At one point Willie was the ONLY black manager in the game (when Dusty Baker and Frank Robinson were fired in '06) and this is some 3 decades after the first black manager took the dugout. (1 black manager out of 30 teams). I mean, i don't advocate for quotas but just for the sake of being progressive (why not my conservatives?) we must all agree we have a ways to go.
I blame the media because one must realize that professional sports, nor any other social entity operates in a vacuum or bubble! When society as a whole is ready to deal with sh!t.. that is when sh!t gets dealt with whether on the field or the oval office! And what central entity but 'the media' can we focus on to give a better reading about where our society is at?
And i will tell you where we are at!
With the NY METS Bobby Valentine didn't make the playoffs till 1999; he had been managing the Mets since '96, with his first full season being in '97. In 2000 they won the pennant but the following year (2001) they barely made .500, going 82-80. And although i am sure he was on the ropes with the media here in NY (They will eat ANYONE alive) he was allowed to manage the full 2002 season in which the Mets went 75-86. Over Bobby's tenure he always had one of the highest budgets in baseball to work with, and like the Mets under Willie, some of the markets best available players *though at times past their prime. Now, Bobby's record and Willie's record over the first three years (Willie only played three) were actually not too different.
So it baffles me as to why Willie took so much heat!
There has been an absolute FERVOR over Willie's status with the Mets and yes i understand, they had the worst collapse in history last year and are under .500 now. But all things considered, Willie is a good Manager (HIS WIN/LOST RECORD PERCENTAGE IS 2nd IN METS HISTORY TO DAVIE JOHNSON). Why not just allow him to finish the season, and if he caps it off having underachieved, then discuss whether or not to bring him back??? If it wasn't a bad decision it certainly was disrespectful/demeaning. I mean, the guy didn't crawl out from under a rock! He was a Yankee great on the field, and spent years coaching third base under Joe Torre.
I do not recall a Manager going through what Willie has gone through over the past month in all my years watching the game.
In the midst of all of this we have Omar Minaya, who has played into the whip cracking, let me save my ass by overcompensating for the fact that i am Latino and come down hard on my darker brother role (like police in the hood). I saw it last year, when after the collapse he began his shady politics, putting the question of Willie's status over the winter out there, and letting it linger. And here we go again. In fact, the only time i ever really see Omar's face is when he pulls his belt up to make an example out of Willie in the open. The most honorable thing he could have done (Being that he will no doubt be going as well if the Mets dont make the playoffs), is ride this year out with Willie and if they should lose.. leave with Willie. But he had to play himself. You want proof that this is all to preserve his standing with 'the good ol boys' just watch his conference held in Anaheim the day Willie was fired and count how many times he feels obligated to say "IT WAS MY DECISION, nobody elses! I JUST WANT EVERYBODY TO KNOW THAT THE DECISION WAS MINE" I'm just saying.. count the amount of times!
I am not going to blame Omar though because the Media (and in turn Society *as represented in the Media) puts the fire to his ass too (I'm pretty sure that even Omar knows changing Managers will do little to change things if the players don't take it upon their QUALIFIED SELVES to step it up! It's like this one guy said: "What more can you do to motivate a guy making millions of dollars?"). In a small town market sh!t like this doesn't happen (probably because they don't have such a large media market, and thus do not have that dog-eat-dog uber-competitiveness). If a team stinks, they stink and the city rides with them till the end of the year; no drastic decisions mid-season.
Do i feel like there have been sportscasters out to get Willie?. NO! everybody loves Willie Randolph; how could you not? The guy is a class act. My assessment of this situation is not on any individual or any conscious agenda. It is infact a subtle SUBCONSCIOUS demon which we have a long way to go before we conquer, rearing its head here in New York City. It is a clever demon, as it is able to form behind just as many institutional covers as a racist individual has excuses. And it has no bias about whom it transmits through... White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, we have all been conditioned to succumb to it's breath and we all breath it, as it builds in the crowd (You know what crowds can lead an otherwise good individual to do.. i mean i'm sure even Jesus tippy-toed abound a crowd or two to catch an over the shoulder glimpse of a stoning in his life time). It is indeed, Racism.
I know because it is a feeling. And if you can allow yourself to not be so reactionary in jumping to denial.. don't take it as an offense but as a possible sin which still lingers in our nature... then you will attest.
__Do you feel something was a bit awkward about how quick this happened?
About how it went about?
__Can you recall it happening like this before?
__Are there many failing coaches? Of them, does this happen often after three consecutive winning seasons?
Think about it
We all had the measuring tape out
We were all watching very closely
And we all began to have this strange urge we weren't wholly aware of, to be the first to predict that he wouldn't jump high enough!
And i think most of us are now
kind of sorry about it
,
,
,
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment