By Matt Napolitano, Humor Columnist
Very few people thought that after their respective firings, former Mets manager Jerry Manuel and general manager Omar Minaya would ever find their way back into New York baseball. Well, to those critics, I say, I really hope you’re sitting down for this one.
Both men have found their way back into the American pastime. No, not with the cross-town rival New York Yankees. No, it’s not within the minors with the Brooklyn Cyclones. Hell, not even in the Quackerjack mascot suit with the Long Island Ducks out in Central Islip. Where you may ask? Right here at Hofstra.
Pride baseball head coach Pat Anderson has formally announced the hiring of Manuel and Minaya as members of his staff. “Jerry and Omar have proven their skills in managing and recruiting, so I feel as though I did my best to find the best jobs for them, and I think they will be happy,” said Anderson.
Manuel signed on Monday and will take over duties as the Pride’s newest batboy. “Jerry couldn’t teach his players how to swing the bat, so I figured hey, he could probably just hand it to them,” Anderson said in a press conference that, at the time of print, was still going on from Monday morning.
However, it looks like Manuel is having a little bit more of a struggle than Anderson predicted. In preparation for his role this season, the former Mets skipper is practicing handing out bats. In what Manuel called a “simulated game”, he made some odd decisions. In the sixth inning, Manuel chose not to hand out a bat, but instead handed the batter a twig. When asked why, he said, “Well…ya know, the twig looked good in practice and he looked like he’d been working on his form for a while and I thought he was ready to go, but things just didn’t go our way.”
While Hofstra staff work on removing Manuel from the puddle of pine tar he left in the dugout, we shift gears to Omar Minaya. Notorious for what Mets fans call poor decision making (that’s quite possibly the nicest way to put it), Minaya’s decision making will be restricted to merely blue or red Gatorade now, as Anderson appointed him to the job of water boy.
“Manning the tubs of quenching electrolytes is as high a skill as Omar has proven to be”, said Anderson, who looked as if he had to have a gun put to his head to make such a statement. “He seems excited, there are two options, red or blue and if he’s lucky, he may get the third option of lemon lime.”
To no one’s surprise, Minaya exceeded Anderson’s worries within hours. The former general manager of both the naturalized Montreal Expos and the coronary causing New York Mets made a bad move. Minaya interrupted the press conference in its seventeenth hour to announce the trade of three gallons of red Gatorade powder and the lemon-lime prospect for a 2013 third-round draft pick and former Mets pitcher Oliver Perez.
Interrupting Anderson, Minaya said, “I also am pondering releasing blue as it is a fan favorite and acquiring Moises Alou and Julio Franco.” As Coach Anderson screamed to Jerry Manuel for a bat to strike Minaya with, members of the press asked the former Mets GM how much money is involved in these contracts. Minaya pleaded the fifth. However, in a possibly related story, Hofstra has raised its tuition to $133,269 a year and that’s just for commuters.
While the press conference continues and Anderson discusses the not-so-welcome additions, I called up the Wilpons, owners of the New York Mets, to get a comment on the exit of Manuel and Minaya. The secretary, screaming over a background of what sounded like the most rowdy drunkenness since Tim Welsh left City Cellar, simply said the Wilpons were not talking. When I asked why, she simply said, “I can’t talk now, there about to set up the Slip n’ Slide”.
