Hour 1: Carton Applauds Steve Cohen for Firing Carlos Mendoza

**Craig Carton** (0:30)
It's kind of like when you hit a deer on the road and the deer is still breathing and you call 911 and the cops come out there and they say, not your fault, it's all good.
If you could just stand back for a second and they take a gun out of their holster and they put two right behind the deer's ear. That's essentially what the meds said this morning to Carlos Mendoza. And I have to say this about it. I actually applaud Steve Cohen for doing it because I heard a lot of people say, yelling and screaming about, hey, you haven't done it on fire, but you should have did it two months ago. But you can't go back in time. Obviously, the Philadelphia Phillies fired Rob Thompson, Don Maddely takes over and it worked for them. The Phillies are a runaway train right now. And they're obviously in town to play in the Mets. So we'll see how that goes for everybody. As Andy Green now becomes the interim manager for the rest of the season. We'll get to that later on today because I would have hired Wally Backman who's already here in Staten Island. And I would certainly have taken the job in a Fincent, which is quicker than an Incent. But here's where Steve Cohen actually did something that is actually very kind. If we all agree that there was no way, and obviously there was no way, that Carlos Mendoza was going to have his option picked up and come back, he's dead man walking. And if we also recognize, I think we all agree kind of universally, that Carlos Mendoza is not the number one guy on the totem pole of who's most responsible for this embarrassing season for the New York Mets. Then if you don't fire him and relieve him of his duties, you put him out there every single day just to be a punching bag. And whether it was the doubleheader loss to the Cubs, or just the overall, you know, bad performance and non-competitive spirit of this New York Mets team, the manager has to talk to the media every single day multiple times a day.
And if we agree it wasn't his fault, A, check that box. And if we agree you're not bringing him back next year, check that box. Then put him out of his misery.
Because now that we've put him out of his misery, and again, I want to applaud Steve Cohen, an owner that I've not agreed with a lot, an owner that I think should come out of hiding, and actually speak to the Met fan base about things, and about the current state of the New York Met franchise, which is a side story of course for another day.
I applaud the fact that he respected Carlos Mendoza, and in his respect of Carlos Mendoza, he fired him. He did Carlos Mendoza a favor. Because when you think about it, not that Mendoza is the greatest manager of all time, he is seventh I believe, all time in the Met franchise, when it comes to a win percentage at 509, meaning that he retires or gets fired as the Met manager with a winning record. How many guys in the history of the Met franchise left here with a winning record? The answer is eight. He's one of only eight managers in Met lore that actually left with a winning record. The reality is that he had to go for his sake. This doesn't make the New York Mets a better organization. This doesn't mean the New York Mets are suddenly going to turn it on and have some self-respect and make you proud of being a Met fan. What it does do though, it does the one thing.
Every Met fan that I've talked to every day for the last six months, it seems to be an agreement on. And that is, it focuses now officially the bullseye of blame onto the back of David Stearns. Now the clock is running officially on your embattled GM, who by the way is going to talk at 3 o'clock today and will carry a part of his press conference live for you on the fan, because I think you as Met fans deserve to hear from the embattled general manager. And remember this, not only is Stearns the guy that made every single bad decision from a personnel standpoint, he's also the guy that hired Mendoza.
So don't think for a minute that part of the decision not to fire Mendoza earlier, when the Phillies fired Rob Thompson and that kind of, that week of action, was not because Stearns didn't want to eat yet another bad decision. So here we are. I'm no longer a die-hard Met fan, but man, I work with a bunch of them. And it's interesting to me that today, the second biggest sports day of the year in New York City, I am without a partner. And that's on Big Mac.