If being classless were a punishable crime, New York Mets management would be incarcerated for life. The Wilpon family, along with Omar Minaya and assistant GM Tony Bernazard has made Mets fans across New York embarrassed to support a team, which so clearly has forgotten what the definition of the word "respect." As Pacman Jones will tell you, nothing good can come from doing anything at 3:15 in the morning.

The Mets were correct in their decision to fire Willie Randolph. This team, a team with so much natural talent stacked throughout its roster, needed a jolt.

Something. Anything. Since Carlos Beltran forgot how to take the bat off his shoulder in the ninth inning of game 7 of the NLCS in 2006, the Mets have been a team of mediocrity.

Although they show every sign of a .500 baseball team, anyone who watches them knows there is something more, something hidden within this team that simply needs to be brought out. I do not think Jerry Manuel is a better baseball manager then Randolph, but there is absolutely no question in my mind that the Mets will play more consistent baseball under Manuel. They will no longer have to answer questions every day about Randolph, and will no longer feel the pressure to hit a home run every at bat because their manager could be fired with one more loss.

However, there is still no reasonable explanation why Mets management should have treated Randolph the way they did. Who fires someone at 3:15 a.m., after flying all the way to the west coast, after all the speculation of his firing for weeks before, and after he WINS the game?

The Wilpons have forgotten what Randolph brought to this team when he came here. In the 2001-2004 seasons, the Mets were a laughingstock. When Randolph came here in 2005, he brought with him a sense of winning. He may not have been the best manager to walk the dugout of Shea, but his hiring rejuvenated a franchise and brought them within a single of the World Series. It's not Randolph's fault that the Mets couldn't win a game in September last year, that his two-corner outfielders have started in the same game this year exactly 12 times and that Beltran couldn't swing the bat in 2006 game 7.

However, he did deserve to be fired. He just did not deserve to be fired in the way that the gutless men who call themselves Mets management decided to pull the trigger.