Blog by Steve Infanti

"This was a tough decision. Some may agree with it, some may not agree with it." That was Mets GM Omar Minaya at his press conference on Tuesday announcing that Willie Randolph had been fired as the team's manager. Of course, that press conference came about 14 hours after the decision had been made public via press release.

That's right, the Mets fired their manager with a written statement at 3:15am. Minaya admitted that his mind was pretty much made up this weekend, but he decided he wanted to sleep on it until Monday morning. So, what does he do? He lets Randolph get on a plane, fly across the country, manage one more game (which the Mets win), answer countless more questions about his shaky job status, then Minaya pulls the plug on him in the middle of the night. Numerous times throughout the press conference Tuesday, Minaya referred to Randolph as his friend. Doesn't a friend deserve to be treated better than that?

Several "insiders" are saying that the decision to fire Willie was essentially made last month. Minaya said that he wanted to be the one to deliver the news to Randolph in person. I can appreciate that. But couldn't it have been handled a little better? Or even a lot better? In a word, the answer is a resounding "yes." What the Mets did was unprofessional and disrespectful.

"This was a tough decision." Put me in with those who don't agree with it.