Watchdog

I never had spent much time around Mets CEO Fred Wilpon until Wednesday, when he held court for 30 minutes with a handful of sports media/business writers at SNY's studios.

It was impossible not to be impressed by the guy, who is sharp as a tack, self-deprecating, baseball-savvy and not afraid to sprinkle in a naughty word - befitting a guy out of Lafayette High in Brooklyn. He even has thoughts on how to improve SNY's "Beer Money!"

Wilpon began his media session with a story about Lafayette - also the alma mater of Sandy Koufax and John Franco - and its sad current state.

After that, I turned on my digital recorder.

I squeezed some of Wilpon's comments into an article for Wednesday's newspaper. But if you click below, you can check out more than 2,000 words or so worth of his thoughts on a variety of topics.

This, my friends, is the best New York sports blog post of the year.

It's about the most ubiquitous sports personality in our area.

Derek Jeter? David Wright? Eli Manning? Hah! Giuseppe Franco, of course.

Thank you, Matt Cerrone of MetsBlog.com. I bow to you.

This is what blogging is all about.

Owner Fred Wilpon feels your pain over Tuesday night's debacle, Mets fans.

Speaking at a news conference Wednesday to announce SNY's partnership with the Big East, Wilpon said, "Nothing could take the sting of last night away. I’m still licking my wounds. I don’t know if it gets harder (as you get older), but it never leaves me.

"When you’re emotionally involved, it hurts. I didn’t sleep last night, I can tell you that."

For much, much more from Wilpon, read Thursday's Newsday. Then read WatchDog for the leftovers!

It will be another light blogging day due to newspaper responsibilities, so I will leave you with something to discuss among yourselves.

I just watched the top of the ninth of Tuesday's Phils-Mets tilt after hearing interesting stuff happened during the inning, which leads me to this question:

What is the worst single, late-game collapse you ever have seen - live or on TV - involving a team you were rooting for?

Even though I wasn't rooting for one team or the other, I am pretty sure nothing for me ever will top the Giants-49ers playoff game following the 2002 season.

See ya later, maybe. Enjoy this afternoon's Melky Cabrera roll call!

Sports stadiums are part of my vast jurisdiction around here, so I went to Shea Friday night to make sure Billy Joel sent off the old barn in style as a concert venue.

No problems there. Hicksville High's own was in fine form, and his guest list included Tony Bennett, Garth Brooks, Steven Tyler, Roger Daltrey and, yup, Paul McCartney.

Here is Glenn Gamboa's account in Newsday. What can I say? It was a privilege to be there as McCartney closed the place he helped open for music with a milestone concert in 1965.

One thing that struck me about the crowd was how demographically diverse it was. Alas, not racially or economically. But certainly gender-wise and age-wise, with a range from 10 to around McCartney's 66, and even beyond.

Compare that to the screaming teenagers by the tens of thousands in '65.

Really, Friday and Wednesday were a tribute to the staying power of rock and roll, and its ability to cross generations.

Look at it this way: McCartney showed up 43 years after his first Shea appearance and was greeted with a stirring ovation. Forty-three years!

Now imagine how it would have gone over with that Shea crowd in '65 if a musical star of the early 1920s, say Rudy Vallee, had shown up for a set.

Or if people had started dancing the Charleston on stage.

I rest my case.

Or, to put it another way:

Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound

Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me

When I posted the transcript of Keith Hernandez going off on Jose Reyes last weekend, I did not expect this much of a stir to develop surrounding that subject.

Wow. If I were writing a newspaper column this weekend rather than house training poodles, here is the angle I might have taken:

It's been a generation since newspaper beat reporters stopped traveling with pro sports teams, which is a good thing. It reinforces the fact reporters are not part of the team, and that part of their role is critical objectivity.

Maybe it's time for teams' TV and radio announcers to follow suit. On one hand, we ask analysts such as Keith Hernandez to be opinionated and critical of the home team when warranted.

On the other, we expect Jose Reyes to see Hernandez sitting on a team charter with the players, coaches and manager and not think of him as part of the team.

The system puts both announcers and players in an awkward position. Much as they'd hate to give up the convenience and first-class food, it's time for home-team announcers to suck it up and join the print journalist schlubs in flying commercial.

Sorry, Mex.

Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez were unimpressed with Jose Reyes' behavior in the seventh inning Sunday after his errant throw failed to find its way into Carlos Delgado's first baseman's mitt.

Here is what they said on Ch. 11 in the top of the seventh:

Cohen: Reyes has taken his glove off and is standing hands on hips out there, with the glove on the ground. That's something you don't like to see. That's not a good look.

Hernandez: Well, he's got to get over that. Enough babying going on now. He's a grown man, he's been around a long enough time. Take off the kid gloves.

Here is what they said in the bottom of the seventh, following a shot of Reyes picking up his glove and sunglasses after throwing them to the ground, then trotting slowly off the field:

Hernandez: There's one thing you have to do when you're an everyday player. It's not that tough. You run onto the field, and you run off of the field, to start the inning and at the end of the inning, no matter if you hit a triple with the bases loaded or you made an error or you struck out. It's a simple thing to do, just run off the field, don't walk off the field. Nothing looks worse than a team walking off a field.

Cohen: The question is, what was he upset about? Was he upset about making the bad play or about the fact the error was charged to him?

Hernandez: I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he's mad at himself. I'm hopeful that that's what it is.

TBS sent an interesting comment from Ron Darling off today's Yanks-Mets tilt, which viewers in the New York area didn't hear, because TBS' telecast was blacked out here:

On Carlos Beltran being a New York type of player:

“I don’t know if there are New York kind of players anymore because this is a tough town and you’re going to catch a lot of criticism. Also, people don’t begrudge the big contracts of athletes, but they do feel as though that when you sign a player to a historical kind of contract they want that player to be a ‘get dirty’ kind of guy, a leader kind of guy, a vocal kind of person, and Carlos is none of those things. He’s an excellent player, great athlete, but would prefer to be left alone. He’s more Greta Garbo than Big League Star.”

YouTube god John Philips is at it again. Here is George Carlin on Kiner's Korner.

Wow. As revolutionary comedians go, this guy really knows his baseball.

I can't do any better blogging than this post. So I'm done for today.

Enjoy "My Boys" on TBS. I think on tonight's episode they might actually show sportswriters at work instead of drinking and playing poker.

(UPDATE: Oops. I messed up in a big way. "My Boys" is on Thursday, not Wednesday. My bad.)

Another item in my Friday newspaper column was a brief essay about the bizarre events of Tuesday, in which the local baseball media tossed itself into a cauldron of print, Internet, TV and radio that over the hours was stirred into one, big blob of content.

I could written a thousand words on the topic, but that kind of thing bores my newspaper readers. WatchDog readers are much more tolerant of such discussions, because by definition they have an interest in media matters.

Here's the kicker to my latest lesson in 21st century sports media:

I wrestled this morning with whether to link to the story in the Daily News in which Willie Randolph discusses his firing, seeing as how, you know, they are a decades-long rival of Newsday.

Then I looked at Newsday.com's main sports page, and there it is, in living, blue-underlined color!

Willie told his story to my old pal Wayne Coffey, who has been working on a book with him. I will now e-mail Wayne and ask him whether the book deal still is on.

Jeff Torborg, a ghost of Mets managerial flops past, was on XM Satellite Radio Wednesday recalling his own awkward end:

“To this day, I don’t know if the Mets know quite how to fire their managers…I was fired at home, but I had not spoken to the general manager for four days prior to my firing…He originally would come down every night.

"When I was fired, I came to a host of cameras. It was suggested I come in through the bullpen. I said, ‘I’m not going to go in through the back door here...’ I woke up that morning listening to the news that I had been fired…I was not flown across country. I was attacked [by the media] outside Shea Stadium.

"It’s unbelievable to me…Willie has an impeccable reputation. Captain of the New York Yankees, that’s really something special, then a trusted coach for a number of years, now he takes the Mets and does, what I thought a terrific job…”

Torborg on his reaction to the owners telling him not to take his firing personally:

"It’s almost like you’re being patted on the head. Don’t make a comment that this is not personal…It’s certainly personal to the one who is losing his job and whose family is disrupted.”

I didn't have room for this in my bonus Wednesday newspaper column about SNY's (and others') coverage of the Willie Randolph firing, but it was one of the long day's most amusing moments:

SNY was scheduled to have Wade Boggs on for one of those cheesy promotional appearances/interviews, but he was stuck on the set at the same time Omar Minaya was stammering through his news conference, followed quickly by Jerry Manuel's session.

Boggs got to talk for perhaps a minute - about Randolph, naturally - between the two news conferences. By the time Manuel was done, Boggs was gone.

Earlier, Boggs had a longer but similarly awkward radio appearance, and was asked about . . . Willie.

The Willie marathon Tuesday was a New York media moment for the ages. I hope Burkhardt still is sleeping.

Holy Throneberry!

I stopped blogging and turned off my computer at around 3:11 a.m., then woke up to news of one of the most awkward managerial firings in New York history.

Lessons learned: Never turn off the computer or go to sleep. And never underestimate the tendency of rich, powerful, highly visible people to do weird stuff.

Next thing you know Yankees ownership is going to try to get the National League to rewrite baseball rules in place since before there was an AL. Like, in the 1880s.

Take that whole nine innings thing. I mean, what's that about? How archaic.

Wouldn't six-inning games keep Yankees contests under three hours (most nights) and give them a shot at complete games for their now-depleted pitching staff (some nights)?

Thanks to all who voted in Newsday.com's unscientific polls on best Mets announcers and best hockey movies.

As of 1 a.m. Tuesday, Bob Murphy had 25.8 percent of 2,354 Mets votes, followed by Ralph Kiner (14.4), Keith Hernandez (12.3) and Gary Cohen (11.7).

Of the 25 hockey movie votes, “Slap Shot’’ had 56 percent and "Mystery, Alaska'' had 20.

I'm open to suggestions on upcoming polls.

Preferably ones that are more popular than the hockey movie vote.

Happy 25th anniversary of the trade that brought Keith Hernandez to the Mets, and eventually SNY.

If it hadn't happened, Neil Allen would be hanging out in the booth with Gary and Ronnie these days! Maybe.

Anyway, here is an interesting story from Newsday's own Steve Marcus about the backdrop to the trade, and how the deal might have been derailed if the Mets had been aware of Hernandez's off-field troubles.

Speaking of Gary Cohen (see post below), I thought he did a fine job narrating Wednesday's operatic Mets game.

Who is your favorite all-time Mets announcer, play-by-play or analyst, TV or radio? You only get to pick one, and state your case. Below are 15 nominees to consider.

I will ask our Web guys to post a poll Friday so we can get an official unscientific answer to this. But as always, WatchDog readers come first:

Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, Fran Healy, Keith Hernandez, Ralph Kiner, Lindsey Nelson, Tim McCarver, Bob Murphy, Dave O'Brien, Ted Robinson, Howie Rose, Tom Seaver, Rusty Staub, Gary Thorne, Steve Zabriskie

Enlightening story here from The Boston Globe about recent efforts to make MLB games consume less time than the average Wagner opera.

Shocking, but true:

Our Yankees and Our Mets are two of the slower teams in terms of delivering pitches and completing games! No, really.

It's time for us to part, as I will be spending the rest of the day producing a column for Friday's newspaper.

But let me leave you with this: As a cranky, jaded old sportswriter, I find I have less passion for actually watching games than I used to.

Then comes a night like Wednesday, when the Stanley Cup finals at last lived up to their billing, the NBA produced a taut finish between two league powers, the Mets came back from deficits in both the ninth and 12th innings to (maybe, perhaps, theoretically) get themselves on the right track and the Yankees fashioned perhaps their final blueprint victory of the season: Pettitte, Joba, Mariano.

That's why we all keep wasting so much of our time and brain capacity on this stuff.

Uh, oh. Gary Carter spoke again this morning on ESPN Radio's "Mike and Mike," meaning I have to add another post to this one and this one.

Oy. Carter reiterated much of what he said to XM Satellite Radio Monday about how the campaigning-for-Willie's-job thing was blown out of proportion and that he supports and roots for Willie, etc.

What was new was him addressing the on-air comments by former teammate Keith Hernandez Sunday in which Hernandez called him "unconscious."

"I don't have any comments. Keith's entitled to say whatever he wants to, especially when he's on the air and working for the Mets. Again, I think this thing was taken out of context. It wasn't intended to be malicious in any which way or trying to campaign or anything else, guys. I think you know me better than that.

"I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity of playing for the Mets those five years and obviously of winning a World Series for them in '86 and Keith being a teammate. To me he was the greatest first baseman I've played with. There always are going to be things that get stirred up, and I know the press is notorious for that, and it's unfortunate. Whatever Keith said, he's entitled to freedom of speech and God bless him.

"I still consider him a great teammate, and again, for his sake and for the Mets organization, I hope that things can get turned around, because I follow them every day and I appreciated my opportunity in the organization, not only as a player but then as a coach and manager and I ultimately made the decision to not go to Binghamton [to manage].

"It's a mistake on my part. I wish I had it all over to do again and I wish I was back in the organization but with that being said, again, I'm out here in Fullerton trying to do the best job I can for the [Orange County] Flyers and really, now, that's all I'm thinking about."

Hey, look everyone!

It's another Tuesday newspaper column by a sports media guy about sports media guys and gals.

This time the main topic is Willie Randolph. Well, not Randolph exactly, but the coverage of Randolph. (Plus items on Don Cherry and Danica Patrick.)

Here's the weirdest thing:

They actually pay me to do this job.

Willie is staying, for now.

Discuss among yourselves.

Good night.

News flash: Gary Carter still is talking . . .

This time Monday on XM Satellite Radio, seeking to clarify his controversial remarks on Sirius Satellite Radio Friday regarding the Mets' not-currently-open managerial position.

Turns out it was all the New York media's fault.

Click below for the details courtesy of XM.

Never mind the inconvenient fact that the Mets' managerial position currently is occupied. Gary Carter says he is ready to take over - immediately!

Click below to read some bluntly candid remarks from the current manager of the independent Orange County Flyers Friday on Sirius Satellite Radio's “The Mike & Murray Show":

Billy Wagner was just on 1050 ESPN with Michael Kay, and indicated the media reaction that most angered him in the wake of last week's locker room outburst was being called a "racist."

Understandable, certainly.

"When things like that get thrown out there, that doesn't hurt Billy Wagner," Billy Wagner said, "that hurts Billy Wagner and his four kids and his wife and his foundation and his charities he does and the people around him, and to me that almost gives me the right to say, 'You know what, I don't have to talk to the media anymore if you're going to mistreat me when I'm there every day.' I don't have to be there every day."

Wow. But who exactly was it who called Wagner a racist, Mr. Kay wondered, as he had not heard anyone accuse Wagner of that?

Um . . . Skip Bayless. SKIP BAYLESS?! Billy Wagner is fed up with the media and might close his colorful mouth because of something uttered by Skip Friggin' Bayless?

I should have listened to my mother and become a pipefitter.

One of the names floated on the radio Wednesday as a potential successor to Willie Randolph was Keith Hernandez.

I assume Keith could do the job if he were so inclined, but the chances of him agreeing to that sort of lifestyle at this stage of his life are about the same as the chances of Willie Randolph becoming the co-host of "Loud Mouths" on SNY.

When a prominent sports figure takes on a prominent sports journalist I tend to react like a mother bear protecting her cubs.

Thus did I call Ian O'Connor last night to get his take on Willie Randolph's assertion that he thought their controversial conversation Sunday was "off the record."

It would have been much worse had Randolph said he explicitly told O'Connor the interview was off the record. Instead he admitted merely to assuming it, something he acknowledged was a mistake.

In a part of his WFAN comments that did not make into the above-linked article, Randolph said, "I was just happy to see him. We were just talking. We were in the middle of the clubhouse just kind of shooting the breeze and stuff . . . I just let my guard down there for a second, but that’s still on me. That’s my responsibility.’’

Randolph this week referred to O'Connor as a "friend," apparently a reference to the fact the columnist publicly has been supportive of him in the past.

Fine. But other reporters who saw O'Connor and Randolph talking in the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium said it looked like a formal interview.

Perhaps the tape recorder in O'Connor's left hand was a hint.

(Triple WatchDog kudos to the first person to identify the trial pictured.)

Here is Willie Randolph's apology on WFAN.

He also apologized in his pre-game session with reporters in Atlanta.

Memo to Mr. Randolph of the New York Mets:

The next time you decide to pop off to a journalist friend, make sure you don't get swept in a day-night doubleheader by a division rival the next time your team takes the field, because it only leads to hours of soul-crushing sports talk radio and only causes me to get depressed about my chosen profession and about sports fandom in general.

Thank you, sir. Carry on.

And beat the Braves. Please.

Joe Torre tries to give Willie Randolph some media advice.

Willie is skeptical, as always.

Hey, kids, tired of watching SNY show unflattering shots of Willie Randolph in the comfort of your boring, old home?

Then head to Port Washington Wednesday night to watch Skip and his Mets on a movie theater screen with fellow fans and ballpark-style concessions (and prices?).

Mr. Met is supposed to show up. But there also are screenings in Manhattan and New Jersey, so I'm not 100 percent clear on how he is going to pull this off.

I know Santa performs an even more amazing trick every Dec. 24, but Mr. Met? His head doesn't even fit through most chimneys. This should be interesting.

Here is more info on the big show tonight.

Every time I write about media relations - most recently Joe Girardi's - and try to make the point that in this market such things do impact teams in various ways, I get many nasty comments and e-mails.

The gist of them:

Media issues are irrelevant to winning and losing and only are brought up by self-important sportswriters out of touch with fans.

So I'll just throw this out there for discussion among yourselves:

In the wake of Billy Wagner's locker room blowup Thursday, would you still say that the way coaches and players conduct themselves regarding the ever-present New York media is a subject of no interest or concern to the people you root for, and thus of no concern to you?

Here is a page on the Mets' Web site that features various players - and Mr. Met! - in brief public service announcement videos regarding the team's community work and encouraging others to get involved.

The Mets asked me to tell you about it. I said I would.

Why not?

Darryl Strawberry is writing a book.

This could be very interesting. Or should be. Let's hope he doesn't hold back.

(Hey, Boomer and Carton both just said how much they like Brandon Inge. Was this a sly poke at their friend Mike Francesa? Hmm.)

Anthony Rieber has an essay on his "Final Score" blog regarding Carlos Delgado, Curtain Call Gate and the media handling of said incident.

I found it interesting, and thought-provoking.

My first thought:

I need to find a new line of work. I feel guilty about not caring about Carlos Delgado's hat.

(Check out the video of Baumbach discussing this from the Mets' dugout. At one point he is drowned out by a plane at LaGuardia. That's old-school Mets!)

In honor of Shea Stadium's final season, here is one of my all-time favorite bits of random sports video.

It features some classic Stengelese, a shockingly young Phil Pepe explaining the differences between covering the Yankees and Mets and shots of the modern marvel of a baseball stadium under construction, with narration by Casey himself.

Glauber lives on this stuff, but this is the very first look-a-like post in WatchDog history.

I saw "Juno," starring Michael Cera, on Sunday.

I saw Mets-Cubs, starring John Maine, on Monday.

Thank goodness other bloggers are keeping up with the