The last time Tony Bernazard got this much coverage for anything was never. He has never been this interesting to anyone, not during his playing days and not when he worked at the MLBPA and not during his apparently irresistible and wholly inexplicable rise to what appears to be a position of unassailable authority in the Mets organization. He’s not even really all that interesting now — just another monster ego with a good paycheck, spotty resume and bravado a go go in a business (and with a franchise) that traditionally lets guys like that hang around for awhile. But you call a bunch of Minor League players pussies and then act like an asshole to a bunch of Major League players and all of a sudden everyone starts asking “what is this butthead doing here?” And then even the finest literary minds of this generation start fixating on you instead of doing the work they’re paid to do. It’s a risk for all of those who aspire to great things.
And honestly, one way or another, Tony Bernazard needs to go away. If the Mets won’t fire him (and I suspect they won’t, at least not for awhile) then maybe we can all just agree to ignore him. But before we say goodbye to the man who has taken his place among the oilest, nastiest and least effective execs in Mets’ history, it’s worth checking out this detailed rundown of who Bernazard is, and how he got here, by Matthew Artus at the Star-Ledger’s Always Amazin blog. Artus takes a pretty strong stance on Bernazard, but he also ably lays out the strange history of Tone-B’s baffling, tantrum-laced rise through the organization. Of course, it didn’t negatively impact my impression of the thing that he winds up with about the same conclusion as me:
Randolph finally gets canned, and Bernazard allegedly fiddled while Shea burned. Bernazard then continues the rhetoric against Jerry Manuel while keeping the availability of his cell phone number as part of the Mets’ minor league development. And now he’s calling out kids in Binghamton for reflecting his failures as VP of Player Development and yelling at subordinates in Citi Field for not bowing down to him.
If Tony Bernazard were still a player and pulling these antics, he would be deemed a “clubhouse cancer” and everyone would beg for him to be traded or released. But he continues to work behind the scenes, just far out enough of the periphery to disappear from memory when we start pointing fingers.
I believe Tony Bernazard is a major distraction and source of confusion and misinformation in the Mets’ front office. I believe Bernazard is the reason the fans and media like to comment on a pro-Latin American agenda in Mets’ personnel decisions, as he clearly uses it to his advantage. The conspiracy theorist in me believes Bernazard, who has made clear his aspirations for higher office, may be using subversion tactics to stage the baseball equivalent of a coup in the Mets’ organization and will continue to do so until he’s a GM himself or he’s fired.
And I believe the Mets will be a better team and organization without Tony Bernazard than with him.
If you’re even a little bit interested in this guy, it’s worth reading the whole thing. It’s as full-spectrum as anything I’ve read on this, and it’s kind of weird that it’s 1) not in a New York paper and 2) wasn’t in print.