Inhistoric.com: The Sports History Blog

There is considerable outrage over the manner in which the Mets terminated manager Willie Randolph. At 3:15 AM, the New York ball club released a press release announcing that Randolph had been fired. The decision is not at all being questioned -- Randolph oversaw the largest September collapse in MLB history and his a team, with a $130 million payroll, is trailing the Marlins in the NL East. But the tactic of firing a guy right after he won on the road in Anaheim rubs people the wrong way.

And yet, political aficionados recognize that this mirrors the way Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race to a t. After Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, Clinton did not announce any decisions on the future of her campaign nor did she even acknowledge that Obama had won. Eventually the movers and shakers met with her and convinced her that the time to drop out was now, and she did, in a 2 AM email to her constituents.

There's something to be said about decisions that are released in 3 AM press releases -- it shows that: A, the person making the decision clearly doesn't want to do it (the Mets certainly supported Randolph after he blew the NL East lead to the Phillies) and B, they have no confidence in the validity of their choice. Why else would they do it that early in the morning, when the field reporters are still in bed and the media hasn't really picked up on it: it gives them the chance to escape questioning.