The Bernazard Era Ends

Here is as much as I need to know of the business world.

When you choose to live as an intimidater, when you decide to live the life of the tough guy in business, you had better be perfectly clean in your own operations. Because when you are not, when the trouble starts to come, there is not going to be a friend to come to your defense.

And that is the world that Tony Bernazard lived in.

Like Willie Randolph last year, when the heat came, there was no one, not a player, not management, who would come to his defense. If Bernazard's closest allies were at the top of the Mets franchise, in the ownership offices,there was not a person below them who would put themselves on the line to defend him.

His actions were indefensible and the investigation the Mets admitted backed up the troubles. The Mets could not defend the charges - although throwing in the intentions of the writer who broke the story, Adam Rubin of the NY Daily News - was ludicrious. If the Bernazard era is over, the era of incompetence in handling these matters certainly seems to be continuing.

Here is the reality - they said that the team was already investigating Bernazard. So how could Rubin breaking the news first be anything suspicious? It was good reporting to be the first one to write it - news that the organization claims it already was checking on. Oh, and the stories have been proven true - if not exactly to the detail that the stories claimed according to Omar MInaya.

Tony Bernazard is not going to be missed by the organization. The Mets had to make this move to get past the troubles. But now they opened up a whole new batch of trouble.

Which is just more of the same. One era over. Another error floating into Citi Field.

 

Comments

[DKA]

Good post. This is when I wish David Stern was the Commissioner of MLB so he could straighten out the Wilpon's similarly to his handling of the Knicks. Force them to get a quality Pres. of Baseball Operations (Pat Gillick?)to take over and get Jeff W out of the way. Management is an incredible embarassment and finds a way to re-affirm my feeling every week. Their incompetance is mind boggling. Seriously, if you tried to prove your incompetance weekly, you couldn't accomplish all that Jeff and Omar have over the past few months. The complete mishandling of injuries (and not because of the number of injuries but rather the failure to deal with them by delaying moves to the IR and leaving your already short handed team even more short handed) and the inability to deal with the press/control a story are unreal.

[Walter Majowicz]

By Omar's comments at yesterday press conference, it pained him to dismiss Tony B. Thus, I can only conclude that he was aware and supportive of Tony B.'s action during his time with the Mets. Omar is also responsible for controlling the behavior of his management team and should have reigned in Tony B. long ago. Omar has now put himself on the spot by his comments yesterday which will make it easier for the ownership to cut him loose in the event the team does not become competitive when the injured players return. I can only hope that omar's ability to evaluate the talent of players is far better than his off the field management ability. Otherwise he will be following Tony B. out the door.

[Ben]

Unfortunately, it seems like Omar did not really have the power to controll bernazard because bernazzard was over his head and was best buddies with Jeff. The bottom line with the Rubin thing is, regardless of his motives, adam rubin was instrumental in getting Bernazard. If Omanr suspected he had alterior motives, he should have brought it up to him privately. In my opinion, I would fired bernazzard regardless of his behavior, simply because of how abysmal our minor league system is. The bottom line is that this all goes back to the ineptitude of the Wilpons. They don't know how to control what's in the press, they don't give Omar power over all the personel. Then Bernazzard might have controlled his behavior. This organization is the epitiome of ineptitude.

[stan]

I like Omar, but it's time for him to go. Now, not later. The Mets desperately need to clean house, and get a reputable baseball man in place. Can I say Pat Gillick again? Pay him whatver he wants, give him complete control, stand back, and shut your mouths. That is the ONLY way the Wilpons can fix this.