Normally I wouldn’t even think of writing a story about the Philadelphia Phillies rival, the New York Mets.  However, recently the Mets have just made themselves easy targets.  Omar Minaya, the Mets GM, held a press conference yesterday to talk about the recent actions and subsequent firing of Vice President of Player Personnel, Tony Bernazard.  Bernazard tried “tone-setting” within his organization, and apparently, Minaya frowns upon that.

"I will fight every single one of you!"

Bernazard’s first incident was with the Mets farm team, the Binghamton Mets.  According to The New York Daily News, Bernazard challenged his players to a fight following their July 1^st game in Binghamton. He removed his shirt – Incredible Hulk style – and attempted to fight his players one by one, allegedly singling out shortstop Jose Coronado.  All this stemmed from Bernazard finding out that his Double-A team might have been involved in some underage drinking.  I guess we now know Bernazard doesn’t tolerate law-breaking…21 means 21.

Then, later on in the month, Bernazard turned his rage toward some scouts at New York Mets game.  This story, reported by The New York Daily News, claims Bernazard headed down to his seats behind home plate, saw some scout from the Arizona Diamondbacks sitting in his seat, and he just lost it.  One of Bernazard’s assistants tried to calm him and told him to wait until the next half inning to talk to the scouts, but Bernazard couldn’t wait.  He went ballistic on these unsuspecting scouts, and fans at Citi Field got to see a game and a show that day.

Finally, the straw that broke the camel’s back, Bernazard got into it with Mets’ closer Francisco Rodriguez.  After an 11-0 beat down by the Atlanta Braves, a few players – including K-Rod – took the bus back to the hotel.  Bernazard was on that bus, and after he saw K-Rod make, what he claims was a friendly gesture to family members, Bernazard decided to discipline K-Rod himself.  According to The New York Times, people on the bus say Bernazard and Rodriguez got into a heated argument, in Spanish, and almost came to blows.  Bernazard backed down, K-Rod went back to his seat, and things cooled off, but Minaya had had enough.

So when Minaya fired Bernazard and fielded questions by the press, why would it be a surprise to anyone that things got weird?  After a few comments, Minaya turned the spotlight on The New York Daily News reporter Adam Rubin.

“You got to understand this,” Minaya explained. “Adam for the past couple of years has lobbied for a player development position. He has lobbied to me, he has lobbied to Tony.”

Find out who is sitting in my seat, and tell them to meet me out front...NOW! (AP Photo/Rick Silva)

Minaya went on and essentially blamed Rubin for Bernazard’s dismissal – suggesting it was Rubin’s  idea.  So a writer, who is writing about a bad team, is really secretly trying to apply for a job with that team? I complain all the time about teams, but that doesn’t mean I am sitting by the phone waiting to get a call from them saying, “Dave, we read your blog, we want you to coach this team!”  This just shows that the Mets are struggling on and off the field.  Minaya fired Bernazard because he lost control; he needs to fire himself for the same reason.

The Mets have failed miserably this season at both the major and minor league levels.  Riddled with injuries, the Mets began the week ten games behind Philadelphia in the NL East. Their Triple-A team, the Buffalo Bisons, has the worst record in the International League and their Double-A Binghamton Mets has the poorest record in the Eastern League.  They just made things worse by firing the only guy who has got any fight left out there…literally.