Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball

Steve Phillips Has Left the Stadium

Well, it seems the straw-grasping I referred to yesterday wasn't enough. The end of a bumpy, bumpy, five-year ride -- from a sexual harassment settlement to the Bobby V feud to the disastrous overpaying and bust-buying -- has arrived, as ESPN.com is reporting that GM Steve Phillips has finally been fired after months of speculation and public outcry. Assistant GM Jim Duquette will take over -- in an interim role for now -- in much the same way Phillips supplanted his predecessor, Joe McIlvaine, in the middle of a season. Duquette may well have the most critical job in the remaining months of the 2003 season. While the players need to justify their presence on the New York Mets (and for some, in organized baseball at all), and Art Howe needs to further adapt to managing a crap club in the big city, the new GM will have a month and a half to restructure the franchise in a way to poise itself for something a little loftier than last place in '04 and beyond. After that, he'll have two more months of gauging talent from Brooklyn to Queens and everywhere in between. (Whoops, that didn't turn out quite right, geographically. The Mets have an A-ball team in Brooklyn.)

Here's to the Duquette Regime in New York. Let's hope it's nothing like a different Duquette Regime in Boston. (Note from Rob: Hey, the Red Sox made the playoffs three times under Dan Duquette. I think you'd take that.