Randolph gets vote of confidence from Mets brass

NEW YORK, NY — Embattled New York Mets manager Willie Randolph got a much-needed vote of confidence from the team’s front office this week.

“I took Willie aside, and I told him that I’d heard a lot of bad stuff about him, and about the situation with our club,” said GM Omar Minaya. “I said, ‘Willie, I want to give you a vote of confidence. I want to be very clear – I’m extremely confident that you will be able to find a new job.’ And you know what? I think it made him feel a lot better about himself.”

Minaya said that his confidence in Randolph was based in large part on the fact that Randolph has been the manager of a major league baseball team in one of the biggest markets there is.

“Granted, he probably won’t be able to find a job managing a major league team,” Minaya said. “He’s clearly not qualified to do that. But his experience here should definitely make him a top candidate for a job as a pitching coach in AA, or maybe even as a manager in rookie ball – something like that.”

Minaya said Randolph welcomed the vote of confidence with relief.

“It’s crazy economic times right now, and so Willie was understandably concerned,” he explained. “It’s not easy to just go out and find a new job, even if you were successful at your last job. If you weren’t, it’s even harder – and let me tell you something, as a manager, Willie Randolph blows. So he would fall in the not successful category.”

Randolph said that the meeting was “productive,” but didn’t get him everything he’d hoped for.

“Omar was very confident in my ability to get a new job,” Randolph said. “So I appreciated that vote of confidence. But he was a lot less forthcoming when I asked him about selling my house. He kept saying things like, ‘It’s a down market,’ and ‘You have a subprime mortgage,’ and stuff like that. I would have loved to get some confidence about that, but I guess you have to take what you can get.”

But Minaya said he’s also confident that Randolph will enjoy his new life.

“He’ll get a decent gig, I’m sure of it. Or, worst case, he can go to ESPN, and tell everyone about everything that they don’t know but that he does know,” Minaya said. “Steve Phillips seems to enjoy that.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!