Bernazard news conference takes bizarre turn as GM turns on reporter
Photo credit: Sipkin, Corey | Omar Minaya holds press conference before a game regarding the firing of Mets VP for player development Tony Bernazard. (July 27, 2009)
The Mets, apparently bitter about the firing of Tony Bernazard, tried to take down the reporter whose coverage helped push the vice president of player development out the door.
So instead of cleaning up their front-office mess and turning the page on the Bernazard fiasco, the Mets immediately found themselves in a brand-new PR predicament - stepping out of one mess and into another.
In a bizarre afternoon at Citi Field yesterday, Omar Minaya went from explaining the removal of Bernazard to attacking New York Daily News reporter Adam Rubin during a rambling 25-minute news conference. Minaya accused Rubin of "lobbying" him and Bernazard for a player development job in the Mets' organization. But when pressed, the GM denied suggesting that Rubin was angling for Bernazard's position when he wrote a series of stories last week that proved fatal to the VP.
Minaya and Rubin traded verbal shots at one point. But roughly two hours after that messy exchange, the GM and COO Jeff Wilpon appeared in the back of the pressbox for a hastily called briefing in which Minaya apologized - not for the allegations against Rubin but for saying them in public, live on SNY.
"I stand by the things that I said, but I regret saying it in that forum," Minaya said. "That was not the proper forum to say it."
What became clear in the hours leading up to last night's game was that the Mets were reluctant to fire Bernazard.
Bernazard allegedly bullied the Double-A team in Binghamton, ripping off his shirt and challenging the players to fight; berated a Mets official in the Citi Field stands and got into a verbal confrontation with Francisco Rodriguez on the team bus in Atlanta. Wilpon revealed Monday that the Mets had launched an internal investigation of Bernazard "two to three weeks" before the Binghamton incident.
"We were both hurt because we're both friendly with Tony," Wilpon said. "We like Tony. We had a great relationship - Omar fostered that relationship - and he was an integral part of what this organization was doing. Omar came to us and said we need to make the decision. That [Bernazard] does not bode well for our organization because he's not living by the values that Omar believes in and the organization believes in."
That close relationship between the most powerful trio in the Mets' braintrust might help explain why Minaya went after Rubin, perhaps as revenge.
Minaya admitted he was upset about having to fire Bernazard. "Today has been a difficult day because it was my decision to let Tony Bernazard go," he said. "It was a very tough decision that I made and there was emotions going through me."
Minaya blamed those emotions, in part, for the assault on Rubin, who was astonished that he suddenly had been targeted by the GM.
"Tony [Bernazard] actually told me I was good at getting information from minor leagues," Rubin said. "I had asked in the past, 'How do you get into that?' That's the extent of it. Jeff had invited me even to meet with him, and I never took him up on it. There's no conflict of interest at all.
"This was not serious on my part . . . To try to twist the story on me . . . It's deplorable. It's really deplorable."
But Minaya later refused to back away from his accusations about Rubin, and Wilpon, standing beside his GM, also confirmed Rubin's interest in getting a job with a team at the organizational level.
"We did have a conversation on career advice," Wilpon said. "I don't think there's anything wrong with that. We were having an impromptu conversation somewhere. I've had numerous conversations with other guys here, and I believe that Adam was doing what everybody else does."
