Willie Go?
Maybe it’s too far to say that the wheels are coming off the Mets, but the bolts are coming loose and the tires are starting to shake. And it’s not just the fault of Willie Randolph, that bulldog, but he’s taking most of the blame of late and with good cause.
I, for one, have never been bought into Randolph’s famed “intensity.” Intensity is often a crock term, tossed around and aspired to by people who are just clearly less talented than others. The example I always give is of the 2004 Red Sox. Were they intense? Arguably – but also arguably not. They wanted to win, surely. But they were also LOOSE, which is kind of the opposite of INTENSE. They didn’t act carelessly – but rather as if they were carefree. They were focused. And they had fun.
I remember years and years ago, right when Randolph started managing the Mets, that he wanted to bring some of that Yankee “intensity” to the Mets by abolishing all facial hair. Firstly – and let’s think of the 2004 Red Sox here also, I don’t see how reining yourself so closely in determatologically necessitates better baseball. Jason Giambi for one is a different player since he came to the Yankees, shed his goatee, trimmed his locks and covered his tattoos. It’s a false sense of community. It’s a granfalloon.
I also remember shortly after hearing of Randolph’s ridiculous plan that Carlos Beltran starting sporting facial hair. In protest? A mutiny? Or did Randolph just renege on this carefully wrought plan to make Beltran et al better players by buying them all Bics? Any way you slice it, the team was at a disconnect with Randolph then, as now. Yeah, these sagging edges are tentpoled by the Mets’ trip to the NLCS in ‘06, but that wasn’t a World Series trip, was it? And that trip was fueled by Minaya’s craftiness and wallet access, not Randolph.
You want intensity? Gimme Jim Leyland, any day of the week. He wears spikes in the dugout! He’s been successful in Pittsburgh and Florida (World Championship) and Detroit (World Series app), not in Colorado, but I’m gonna chalk that up to the fact that Leyland smokes a lot and the air is thin up there. Hard to be intense with diminished oxygen.
Willie Randolph, if he stays or goes, just plain old isn’t as tough as everyone believed him to be. Yankee pedigree? Who cares. Yankee fans watched their teams win too – Willie just watched from a better seat. He’s just trying to be something he’s not, that’s what bothers me the most. If he’s softer-spoken and more mild-mannered, he’s gotta go with that. He can’t pretend to be “intense” if he’s not, and his players aren’t gonna buy into that completely either.
It’s not entirely Willie’s fault. But he’s failed to inspire, to wrangle, to get thrown out of games when that would fire a team up more than anything. A manager must manage in all ways, the lineup, the egos, the clashes, everything. He’s just come up short in too many of these ways to stay.
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