The Question That Will Soon Occupy The New York Media: Should The Mets Fire Willie Randolph?

With the New York Mets completing an all-time great collapse today (I love you, Tom Glavine, but seven runs in the first? What's THAT all about?), a hot topic in the coming weeks will be the fate of manager Willie Randolph. While a manager obviously doesn't make a huge difference in the number of games a team wins or loses, conventional wisdom seems to suggest that an implosion of this magnitude requires a sacrifice - and history tells us that the person most likely to shoulder the blame is the manager. Right or wrong, that's the way it is.

But is it a normal reaction? Do teams that fold so dramatically down the stretch generally fire the manager and move on, or accept it as a bad stretch at a bad time and give Skip another chance?

Off the top of my head, I came up with five similar situations:

1964 Philadelphia Phillies
The poster child for horrific collapses, the Phillies held a 6 1/2 game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals on September 20, with twelve to play. One week later, they had slipped out of first place, eventually finishing tied for second, one game behind the Redbirds.

1969 Chicago Cubs
In the first season of divisional play, the Cubs controlled the National League East by nine games on August 16. Less than a month later, on September 10, the Amazin' Mets took the lead, eventually running away to win by eight games.

1978 Boston Red Sox
On July 19, the Red Sox had a nine game lead over second place Milwaukee and a fourteen game lead over the New York Yankees. On September 13, the Bronx Bombers took over the top spot and eventually won the division thanks to the Bucky Dent playoff game.

1995 California Angels
The Angels were up by eleven games on August 9 before freefalling and dropping the division to Seattle in a one-game playoff on the last day of the season.

2004 New York Yankees
The only major collapse I could think of that didn't happen in the regular season, the Yankees failed on a much bigger stage: the postseason. Up three games to none against the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series, New York dropped four in a row, including the final two at home, to lose the series.

What does this have to do with Willie Randolph, you ask? Easy: while all of those teams fared badly enough down the stretch to be remembered for all eternity as complete and utter failures, none of the managers - not one - was fired in the immediate aftermath.

Gene Mauch, Philadelphia Phillies: Mauch was in his fifth year with the Phillies in 1964. He continued managing the team for three more full seasons and part of a fourth before the two parted ways. From 1965-68, his teams won at least 82 games a year, but never finished higher than fourth.

Leo Durocher, Chicago Cubs: 63-years-old in 1969, Durocher had spent the previous three seasons with the Cubs before the Mets suddenly matured and ran away with the division title. He managed two full years after, finishing second again in 1970, and just over half of the 1972 campaign.

Don Zimmer, Boston Red Sox: The Gerbil came to Boston in 1976 and led the team to 90+ wins in each of his three full seasons (1977-79). He was shown the door after an 82-73 mark in 1980.

Marcel Lachemann, California Angels: Lachemann had the shortest managerial career of any manager on this list, taking over from Buck Rodgers in 1994 and yielding to John McNamara in 1996.

Joe Torre: Yankees fan weren't pleased with the team's historic collapse in 2004 and I'm pretty sure rumors were floated that he wouldn't be asked back the following year, but that has become a way of life for the most successful New York manager of the past fifty years. There are rumors EVERY year that he's not coming back. Still, facts are fact: three full seasons after the biggest postseason collapse in baseball history and he still has his job.

Bottom line: I hope the Mets take some time to look objectively at this situation, ignoring what will probably be written in the media and on the Internet (well, except for this post), and realize that one bad month does not necessitate a drastic change in leadership. Randolph has done good work in New York in the past few years and has earned the right to continue.