DENVER – Despite some encouraging words from his boss, Willie Randolph sounded like Dead Manager Walking today.
GM Omar Minaya made a surprise visit here Friday to give his embattled manager a tepid vote of confidence to reporters in the wake of a losing streak that had dropped the Mets below .500.
But talking with the media before the Mets snapped their five-game losing streak with a 9-2 victory over the Rockies, Randolph said.
Minaya offered no personal words of encouragement since arriving in Denver.
“Just chit-chat, like we usually do,” Randolph said when asked to describe his talks with Minaya this weekend.
In another sign that he realizes the end could soon be near, Randolph used some dark humor when talking about Minaya’s arrival.
“I thought I saw him in the back sharpening his machete,” Randolph said. “I don’t know if that feels too good. He saw me coming, so he kind of slipped it in his back pocket. I don’t know if that made me feel better.”
Later in a rambling, 20-minute interview, Randolph seemed resigned to his potential fate when asked about the ominous timing of Minaya’s unexpected visit. Randolph even described Minaya’s public voicing of support as “the kiss of death.”
“I’m just so hell-bent on winning the game right now that whether Omar is here or not, whether they support me or not, is irrelevant really,”
Randolph said. “It’s going to be what it’s going to be. I’ll go down to the last day trying to win a ballgame.
That’s why I’m here. That’s why I came here. All that stuff is out of my hands.”
Randolph tried to downplay the implications of his scheduled meeting Monday or Tuesday with Minaya, Mets owner Fred Wilpon and chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon.
The Wilpons have refused to take Randolph’s calls since the manager became embroiled in controversy for remarks he made to the Record of
Hackensack alleging racism and complaining about the team’s own TV network.
Randolph, who later apologized for those remarks, insisted his meeting with the Wilpons wasn’t prompted by the uproar over the interview.
“We usually have … quarterly meetings,” Randolph said. “There was going to be one anyway. We’ll go over the team and we’ll say what we’ve got to say … and go from there.”
At least publicly, Minaya agreed with that description.
“It’s just going to be a meeting – nothing major,”
he said.
Randolph, though, said the past week has been difficult on him, and especially his family.
“My wife [Gretchen] has been in baseball all of her life,” he said.
“She lives and dies with me every day, as does my family, so it hasn’t
been easy for them. They feel my pain.”