Rubin outraged by Minaya's accusations
Photo credit: Handout | Adam Rubin of the New York Daily News answers questions at Citi Field after a Mets press conference Monday.
Adam Rubin began his day attending a news conference. He wound up holding one of his own.
When Omar Minaya held a news conference to announce the dismissal of controversial vice president of development Tony Bernazard, the Mets' GM proactively, indirectly accused Rubin - the Mets beat writer for the Daily News - of ethically questionable behavior.
When Rubin broke the story last week that a shirtless Bernazard challenged Double-A Binghamton's players to a fight, Minaya said he "scuffled" with the report because Rubin had "lobbied" Minaya and Bernazard for a job in the Mets' organization.
Rubin responded with outrage and with questions about whether he still can cover the team. "To try to twist the story on me . . . It's deplorable," he said after Minaya spoke. "It's really deplorable."
Yet by the time the Mets began their game with Colorado last night, Minaya already had issued an apology - not for his accusations, but for the timing and location of them.
Rubin said he had indeed spoken with Minaya and Bernazard, as well as Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, about the possibility of working for a baseball team.
"The way newspapers are going, I think we all need to look out for ourselves," he said. "I've been around minor-league baseball since the '90s, when I covered the White Sox's Double-A team [in Alabama]. I enjoy that. Tony actually told me I was good at getting information from minor leagues.
"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."
Rubin, who challenged Minaya during the news conference, said, "There's no conflict of interest at all." And Daily News editor in chief Martin Dunn said in a statement: "We stand by Adam 1,000 percent."
