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It’s hard to tell how much of Willie Randoloh’s interview in The Record today was baited. Outside of a straight up Q&A transcript we can never know how much columnist Ian O’Connor poked or what sore spots he hit to make Willie say the things he did.
One thing is clear: Willie would rather prove so-called ungrateful fans wrong on the field with performances like yesterday than wage wars in the newspapers. But even when he is trying to get fired up for our sake he comes off as a sniping bitter man. In one short interview meant to come off as breezy, Slick Willie sputtered like a PR machine in need of oiling. Rather than shutting us up, he added more converts to the growing chorus calling for his head. And he’s surprised a lot of us “don’t like him.”
To parse a bit of Randolph’s comments:
1. Mets fans were in hiding before he came to Queens.
Before 2005, legions of Mets fans were apparently tucked away in their baseball bunkers praying for the day that a fearless leader would come and march the team to one of the worst regular season collapses in baseball history. I know we are not supposed to talk about The Great Collapse anymore and I don’t like to do it but if Willie is going to declare war on the fans we might as well ammo up.
2. SNY painting Willie poorly.
“They’re the artists, I’m the canvas, They paint the picture the way they want to.”
Awww, it’s just like The Truman Show! All the fans and SNY want to see is a little bit more ass patting, Willie. You’re absolutely right. Just throw over one teeny tiny table of food and we’ll be happy, Skip. Oh, you have? I stand corrected. The puppet masters over at SNY clearly don’t film enough of Willie standing on the top step of the dugout. They only film him standing on the second step and that’s.just.wrong. Bottom line: We don’t care about theatrics. We care about results. Quit blaming camera men or they will film you from even worse angles than they do already.
3. The whiff of racial bias.
Nobody was going there. To be fair, in the column, Willie appears to be answering a rhetorical question, maybe his own/maybe thrown out there by O’Connor.
“Is it racial?” Randolph asked. “Huh? It smells a little bit.”
Somewhere along the way Isaiah Thomas is referenced. I don’t think Willie is playing the race card but it sounds like there is some sort of chip squarely on his shoulder. I hope this doesn’t become the Next Thing for talk radio to obsess about but sadly I think it might.
The New York sports media is a prism and it has bent many words and wrecked good intentions before. For a guy who has spent so much time in this city you would think he would have learned by now.
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4 Responses for "You Asked For Passion?"
he’ll show us the bronx!
I actually like hearing Willie stick up for himself after the beating he has been taking in the papers and on talk radio. We all know how irrational they can be at times. While Willie has his flaws, he’s been successful more than not with this team, and the reasons for their mediocre play over the last 100 games is more do to the poor execution of his players than his management of them.
We don’t see the fire of Willie that his players admit seeing behind closed doors. He doesn’t need to put on a show to make the people who get paid to blow things out of proportion happy. He’s too busy trying to manage a baseball team.
I agree, the media and in turn the fans take it way too far. I would just prefer if willie didnt feel the need to go overboard with his own self-defense and would use his interviews to talk more about the team. (also as with any interview/column we don’t know the questions being asked so I will admit this is not a fair sample but rather a few select brazen quotes, in my opinion)
he tried to stick to the facts a little bit in this interview but most of the quotes we see here are accusatory. I just don’t see the point in that when lots of fans are already mad. I’m not saying he has an obligation to appease fans that are unreasonably upset but I’d like him more if he took the higher road and didn’t pat himself on the back so much. it’s like his champagne tastes sweeter comment last year - it just showed a disconnect with what was happening.
I don’t think this kind of interview is normal from Willie. He rarely talks about himself, but thats how this interview was framed. I think we all know that Willie was placed on the hot seat after the Nationals series and his job was held in question. I think its hard not to defend yourself when someone is questioning your integrity and your passion for something you love deeply.
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