Who should the Mets fire first? As much as I'd like to weep bitterly about the Chargers losing yet another game, and suggest Norv Turner's firing involve him set adrift in the Pacific aboard a blazing Viking funeral boat, I can't ignore what the Mets managed to not do this weekend.

If you listen to any sports radio at all, you've heard the Mets blew a 7 game lead with 17 left to play. It's a bigger collapse than Michigan losing to Appalachian State. Like, the biggest collapse in professional sports ever.

I'll guess the Mets fans want blood, because this was one of the less obscene blog posts about it that I've seen today...

The Mets finished off their late-season train wreck in suitably spectacular style, giving it up quicker than a prison bitch and losing 8-1 to the Marlins. It was a classic choke job, the kind where the last-place team scores seven in their first at bat, while the first-place team leaves a boatload of men on base early before phoning it in late.

Do they fire the GM, Omar Minaya, for not assembling better pitching? Do they toss Willie Randolph for failing to manage the Mets to one more win? I've got the easy solution. Fire them both.

I see it like the Lloyd Carr thing at Michigan. Fiasco. Debacle. Season over on the first day of September, followed the next week by getting completely owned by Oregon. You can't bring the guy back, unless they beat Ohio State by 50.

Same thing goes for New York. Except it's two guys. And it's a different sport. And it's pros instead of college. But it's the same thing.

Epic collapses in baseball aren't the best way to sell people on your new stadium coming in a couple of years.

Did I mention my Chargers lost? Again? Yeah, me and the Futon Of Love are going to see the passing of a lot of cheap beer to get over that. The Chargers hired Norv Turner. I'm still in shock here.

Isiah Thomas costs the Knicks again I told you a couple of weeks ago that Anucha Browne Sanders was going to cash in big time in her lawsuit, where she was fired while the Knicks were investigating her sexual harassment claims.

How right was I? How about $11.6 million ways, peeps?

The result: The Garden owes $6 million for condoning a hostile work environment and $2.6 million for retaliation. Dolan owes $3 million. Though Thomas is off the hook for any damages, he leaves the case with a tarnished image.

Outside court, a beaming Browne Sanders insisted her victory was more about sending a message than the money.

Whenever they say it's not about the money, guess what? It's about the money. Unless she donates every penny of her windfall to things like domestic abuse shelters, no one's buying the "sending a message" bit.

Still, she earned it just by having to work for the Knicks. Isiah's appealing the case, but I would think he'd be busy stuffing another overpriced small forward on the Knick bench right now.

Image courtesy AP Photo

Say hey Willie, you're still hired The Mets are bringing Willie Randolph back after overseeing the most epic collapse of a sports franchise in recorded history. It's true, all the way back to when they used to tie knots in ropes and send runners scampering over the Andes to deliver them as messages, no one's ever lost out after being 7 up with 17 to play.

I'll give Willie credit, he's got a sense of humor over having to work in New York after that disastrous finish...

Randolph showed up without his mustache, and when asked why he shaved it he said, jokingly, "It's not a good time to be recognized in this town.

The guy who built the roster that collapsed in epic fashion will be back too. Willie's boss Omar Minaya doesn't act like he was in any trouble. Omar's already trying to push Willie onto an ice floe out to sea...

Minaya will now be subject to the same sort of pressure that Randolph will experience next season. The Post reported the GM will be in danger of being fired next season, if Randolph doesn't oversee a winner. Minaya said, "I have not been told that by our ownership that we are linked together," - perhaps he was attempting to distance himself from Randolph.

The press conference also offered a strange opening scene in which Minaya said - with Randolph standing off to the side - he needed to "really think about . . . whether [Randolph] was going to come back or not."

Nice little backstab ol' Omar gave his manager there. Like Willie was out on the trade deadline doing jack for the team. At least this gives me a reason not to think about Trevor Hoffman throwing BP to the Rockies on Monday night.

Image courtesy of the funniest newspaper outside the LA Times editorials, the New York Post.

Butt painter sues his school I'm going to give you a lesson in creating an Internet pseudonym. Here's an example of the right way: real name - Fred; online fake name - Valentine McLury. I just made that up, so don't bother Googling it. The point is, they aren't very much alike.

Then we have the case of art genius Stephen Murmer. He was a high school art teacher, until his anonymous art career turned up on YouTube...

Stephen Murmer was fired in January after Chesterfield County Public Schools officials saw a YouTube video of Murmer wearing a swim thong and a Groucho Marx mask, demonstrating how he applies paint to his backside, then presses it onto a canvas.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond by the American Civil Liberties Union, said Murmer's firing violates his First Amendment rights.

I'm all for freedom of expression, consenting adults, no one's business, one love, etc etc. Not everyone feels that way.

I'm not in favor of stupidity, which I'll show you in the example of how not to create your puncture-proof online pseudonym...

Murmer paints under the pseudonym "Stan Murmur," and displays some of his work on his Web site

Stephen Murmer to Stan Murmur. He swapped 'ephe' for 'a' and a 'u' for an 'e'. Here's the brilliant reasoning...

Rebecca K. Glenberg, an ACLU lawyer who is one of Murmer's attorneys, said the school board fired Murmer for art created on his own time that he "scrupulously kept private from his students." He adopted the pen name to ensure that his students didn't discover his private work by using Internet search engines such as Google or Yahoo, she said.

I went to high school. High schoolers can pick out Stephen Murmer from Stan Murmur. It's automatic. Takes a split second of deduction for even the most disconnected stoner to make. "Scrupulously kept private?" Bull-scrupulous-pucky. He wanted to be found.

Pirates scuttle their skipper Another baseball season down the tubes in Pittsburgh, and another manager sent away for not being able to perform cold fusion, cure cancer, and get the Pirates over .500.

If you stop the video of GM Neal Huntington chucking Jim Tracy at the see-ya press conference at 1:00 on the timer, you get a frame of him that looks like his soul just left his body. Creepy...

Tracy, 51, went 135-189, including 68-94 in the season that ended Sunday, since former general manager Dave Littlefield hired him Oct. 11, 2005. Littlefield was fired earlier in the month, and the decision regarding the manager was left up to his replacement, Neal Huntington. Team president Frank Coonelly also was heavily involved in the process.

Little advice, if your record stinks like yesterday's diapers, chances are the new GM will want to bring in someone a little less stinky to be the manager. They also kicked out three front office guys, and told the old coaches they were free to go look for other jobs.

Joe Torre might be available for a job interview after the Yankees get knocked out by the Indians, since Boss Steinbrenner pretty much said his ass is out if they lose. He could be a hero in Pittsburgh. They don't expect 110 wins and a World Series every year like the psycho Yankees fans do.

Image courtesy of Chris Carlson/AP

A tale of three bosses One's been run out, one may be run out, and one has done a runner.

Sprint ran out its CEO, one Gary Forsee, after they cratered their second quarter profits. I betcha he did foresee this coming, because his parachute out of Sprint totaled about $55.5 million.

Sprint shareholders, feel free to be inventive with your invective in the comments.

Another boss may be run out by Boss Steinbrenner. Yankees manager Joe Torre, who to my knowledge hasn't played an inning or swung a bat since 1977, is being blamed because the richest payroll in baseball crashed and burned against the Cleveland Indians.

I think GM Brian Cashman ought to be sleeping a little more restlessly. He's the one that assembled a high-price roster, but no one's suggesting feeding him to the fans in the upper deck. Should be fun when Torre gets Willie Randolph's job with the Mets next year. (I made that up. But c'mon, everyone's thinking it.)

As far as bosses taking flight, that would be my cheery boss Lucas, who's becoming a Yahoo. Now Sachin has to put up with me in his email box. Sachin, this is not my fault, don't believe a word Lucas says, I have no idea who left those eels in his desk.

A history of firing It's been almost twenty years since Billy Martin died before the Yankees could hire him to be a manager for the sixth time. He had getting fired down to a headline grabbing art form.

Seriously, the modern sports manager, coach, ball boy, whatever, couldn't hold a candle to Billy the Master...

Fighting and drinking continued to be the thread that linked his playing days to his managerial career. In his first season as skipper of the Twins, he gave pitcher Dave Boswell a black eye in a bar, won a division title, and was fired.

Steinbrenner hired him for the first time in 1975, and the Yankees won the World Series two years later, even after Martin and Reggie Jackson nearly came to blows in the dugout during a nationally televised game. A year later, Martin was fired.

By 1979, he was back at the helm, only to be fired again by October after punching out a marshmallow salesman in the elevator of a Minnesota hotel.

You just don't get that kind of dedication out of modern day managers.

Image courtesy of FindAGrave.com

Did Obama's campaign fire someone or not? Wally Edge says Seton Hall law prof Mark Alexander picked up a pink slip from Barack Obama's campaign. The professor had been Obama's national policy director.

Obama's campaign promptly flipped out over the report that they fired Mark...

“The post by Wally Edge this morning is completely inaccurate,� said Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki. “We have relocated several senior staffers to key February 5th states, including our Deputy Political Director, our mid-western political director to Missouri, and western field director to California and so on.�

But New Jersey Democrats supporting Obama don’t seem to agree with the spin from the national campaign office, suggesting that it is a bit unusual for a campaign to dispatch one of their issues experts to run a state campaign – especially one who has little experience in running ground operations.

So if you believe the spin, Obama's handlers took a national policy director and put him in charge of campaign efforts in a single state. That ain't firing, that's just a demotion. I can see where people would get confused.

Remain calm! All is well! Banks are one of the most corrupt businesses that exist. They play favorites with rich customers, shaft the poor ones with all kind of fees, and get to do pretty much what they want thanks to the fat checks they write to Congress.

They have their bad points too, I'm sure. Like lying to the public about their portfolios...

Months before Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) preannounced a third-quarter loss and a writedown of $5 billion last week, it had been assuring investors and the press that its portfolios of mortgages and asset-backed securities were well-hedged and profitable.

Investors are now questioning why Merrill would dissemble if the truth was going to come out weeks later.

Um, could it be because they're lying bastards trying to hang on to their jobs?

That didn't work for quite a few people...

Merrill Lynch Chief Executive Stanley O'Neal last week fired global fixed-income chief Osman Semerci and his North American lieutenant, Dale Lattanzio.

Citigroup on Thursday fired its capital markets and trading head, Tom Maheras, in the wake of announcing an upcoming $5.9 billion writedown that took the markets by surprise. The bank also dumped one of his top lieutenants.

UBS is the only one of the big banks to have held its top executive responsible. In July, it fired Chief Executive Peter Wuffli after the collapse of a hedge fund unit, which he had helped engineer, cost the bank some $300 million.

If you take $5 billion out of investors' pockets, that's a writeoff. If you take $100, that's at least a misdemeanor. Set your sights high, peeps, cuz if you're on top of the banking world, you can commit legalized theft for at least a little while.

AOHell, 2,000 jobs scorched "We have a bright future as a company if we can execute on this vision." - AOL's Randy Falco wrapped up his fourteen paragraph corp-speak spin with this gem. Executing on the vision means real executions, all right. French Revolution style to the tune of 2,000 jobs, sez Valleywag.

Sharpen the guillotine and call the headsman, Marie, and let them all eat cake first.

Even better, another Valleywag piece sayeth the former AOL HR chief, Lance Miyamoto, quit in protest of these upcoming job cuts a week ago.

That would be a pretty cool and even noble thing, but Valleywag's vicious commenters have been chopping the Lance as noble story into sashimi...

give me a break. he never left the 5th floor and never had any impact on the company.

if he quit in protest, it was only protesting the fact that the layoffs caused a bunch of inconvenient actual work.

Who put the HR stamp of approval on compensation and benefits for top execs who were rewarded large bonuses despite their arrogance and inability to run the company like a real business.

That's some quality off the hook bitterness.

Nebraska mistakes AD for coach, fires him No no no, non, nyet, negatory. You Cornhuskers just got waxed by Oklahoma State, by 31 points, in Nebraska, with Cornhusker coaching legend Tom Osborne and his '97 championship team squirming in the stands.

Coach Bill Callahan should have been checking his neck to see if his head had been chopped off with a scythe after the game. The athletic director, who apparently had fewer friends than Tommy DeSimone did with the Gambinos, got whacked instead.

Not in a Sopranos sense, they just told Steve Pederson to take his two million and bust out of Nebraska...

Pederson alienated a lot of people in Lincoln. That's OK -- if your changes bring success. But Pederson's regime struggled. He just received a contract extension over the summer and still is owed more than $2 million.

The price of failure ain't too bad in college football, is it?

Oh and six? Oh get out! Maybe 20,000 people in Atlanta will even notice this, but the National Hockey League has its first coach firing of the year. The first pucks have barely been dropped and shot over the glass into the beer cups of unsuspecting fans, but Atlanta Thrashers coach Bob Hartley is gone...

“This is always a very difficult decision to make, but we feel that this is the best thing for our team right now,� said Waddell. “We thank Bob for his service over the last four-plus seasons, but we believe that a new approach is necessary to get the club back on track and compete at the level we feel we are capable of.�

Right now the Thrashers aren't capable of much, with an 0-6-0 start. The Flyers dropped a 4-0 shutout on Atlanta last night, leaving them the only team in the league without a single point.

Even in the come one, come all playoff system the NHL uses, zero points won't get a team into the post-season. Someone has to be the butt of the "what's blue and orange and plays golf during the Stanley Cup" jokes.

Torre disses $5 million deal. What?! No World Series titles since 2000.

Three straight first round playoff exits.

George Steinbrenner publicly saying Joe ain't coming back if the Yankees and their massive payroll are sidelined in the first round again.

Even with all this, the Boss's offspring still put a deal for $5 million on the table, with incentives that could push it to $8 million and an option year.

Joe went to Florida and asked for more. He didn't get it. How's he feel after making about $70 million off the Yankees just in the last twelve years? Yup, total disrespect...

"When I expressed my dissatisfaction with the length of contract ... I explained that and the incentives, which I took as an insult," Torre said. "If we hadn't started this run, being in five of the first six World Series, I don't know how to say that one is never enough, or two is never enough. You're constantly driving because you know that's the goal you've set for yourself.

"The most important thing for me -- sure, money's a part of it, and five million dollars is a lot of money, and I'm not going to make that this year, so I'm not taking it for granted -- but if someone is reducing your salary, it tells you that they're not satisfied with the job you're doing. ... Two years would have opened the door for further discussion, but it just never happened."

I'll put it like this, and Sachin, if you're reading this and not out mountain biking or kite surfing, please. Diss me. Insult me with a $5 million offer. I can be bought. Seven digits, pride takes a backseat, no, it gets in the trunk with orders to keep quiet or Bad Stuff will happen.

I'm begging you. Ignore my pride. Write the check.

Goalie-benching coach gets himself red-carded Put me in the Hope Solo camp. After the precocious young star keeper for the US Women's Soccer Team ended up on the bench to watch her team get shelled by Brazil, she ripped coach Greg Ryan a new one.

The talking heads on ESPN were falling all over themselves to criticize her for being honest. I'd subscribe to her newsletter if she had one. Awww, she wasn't nice to her coach because of his boneheaded decision, boo hoo hoo.

Goalie-swapping Greg finally got the richly-deserved firing he fully earned by pulling Hope from the squad based on a hunch. Yeah, I know, I want coaches to take chances, but Greg's got all the sense of timing of a busted watch. See ya Greg...

Sunil Gulati, president of the United States soccer federation, declined yesterday to second-guess Ryan’s goalkeeper decision, but he noted that the top-ranked Americans were undefeated before the Brazil match.

Gulati said he would not characterize the goalkeeper switch “as a right or wrong decision,� but “obviously the result of the game was not what Greg was looking for.� He seemed to lose the confidence of some of his players.

Yeah, ya think? Hope shredded Greg for blowing it on a really big stage, and he retaliated against her. She's not going to win any sportsmanship awards, but she might help the team win a World Cup again.

Can't say that about him. I know, 45-2-9 for Greg's career, that second L was a killer though.

Image courtesy ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in bloviating

L.A. eats $95,000 payout to fire Gloria Jeff The ex-transit chief won't get her job back. The city council won't get to talk about the five-digit check she's getting to just go the hell away. Judging by this comment about her management style, it sounds like her former co-workers would rather be stuck in the path of the wildfires south of L.A. than have to work for her again...

So much was so wrong on so many levels, from an apparent lack of foresight on the part of Villaraigosa and his staff (Hiring 102: check references), to the fact that many on the City Council and those who worked below Jeff chafed repeatedly at her brusque manner. In short, there were few if any team-building lunches at the Olive Garden. Seems Jeff had the social skills of the Joker from "Batman" (sorry, that's not a very nice thing to say about the Joker).

For those of you who were doing more constructive things, like getting investment banking jobs, instead of reading Batman or Detective Comics, the Joker is a psychopathic murderer who used to kill people with a poison that froze their faces into grinning death masks.

I know a lot of people have had crap bosses, and I've had a few of these inhumans as supervisors too, but I feel pretty safe in saying none of them ever killed half the office with toxic Krispy Kremes. Or seemed real likely to do it, though there's one I can think of who wouldn't surprise me with a front page appearance in Brutal Crimes Monthly.

The thought probably didn't occur to them at the time. Gloria's ex-underlings must be breathing easier.

Gosling goosed out of film by Jackson Ryan Gosling is out of the production of the movie version of The Lovely Bones. Marky Mark Wahlberg took over his role a day before shooting.

Now Tinseltown is abuzz (not aflame, that would be bad) with chatter over why Ryan won't be working for Peter Jackson on the film. E! says sandwiches did Ryan in...

"He ate grilled cheese every day, " says the magazine's source.

Sure, there's also something in the story about attitude problems, but who cares? Getting fired for eating grilled cheese...That's gotta be the best pink-slip story ever!

Best pink slip story ever? I'll be the judge of that.

No.

Back to Ryan. The Post sez he and the Master of Hobbits just didn't see belly button to belly button...

Those old "creative differences" are to blame for director Peter Jackson's firing of Ryan Gosling from "Lovely Bones." "Peter couldn't stand Ryan," said one source. Though Variety reported that Gosling had "stepped down" and was replaced by Mark Wahlberg, our source said, "Ryan cut his own hair, and was fighting with wardrobe. He was so demanding . . . Peter booted him two days before filming started."

If there's a war of words, no one's going to side with Ryan over the maker of the Lord of the Rings epics. Peter Jackson could strangle Ryan on national TV with a global Internet feed showing the crime, while singing the New Zealand national anthem, and a jury of LotR fans would acquit him faster than you can say "Glamdring."

Image courtesy of the NY Post

Bank of America cuts up 3,000 jobs All those bad mortgages have caught up to the banks. Everyone's dumping people as fast as the executives can push them out the door to save their skins.

Bank of America has an assembly line, or is it a job disassembly line, in operation to fire people after they put up a mere $3.698 billion in net income last quarter.

Just think of the unimaginable horrors the C-level types could experience if they didn't toss out all those employees. They might have to fire a gardener or maid at home, or limit their consumption of caviar to a jar or two less per month.

Imagine the sadness at the prospect of selling off one of the vehicles from the 10 car garage to make up for, oh, having to eat a pay cut instead of getting rid of a bunch of people who aren't going to ski outside the United States anyway.

Gasp! Seriously, what kind of ass would suggest a little less largess at the top of the corporate pyramid, so a few of the little people could hang on to their jobs? Obviously someone who doesn't shop on Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive.

That's just un-Bank of American.

FEMA faker Philbin fired Fun Monday for Pat Philbin, he of the phony FEMA news conference from what's left of smokin' Southern California. He was slated for a nice job change working for Mike McConnell, the National Intelligence Director.

Not so fast, Peppermint Patty. No one's buying the last minute press conference excuse for putting employees in as reporters. Not even Mr. Safety...

The head of homeland security also has blasted the fake news briefing and said those behind it showed "extraordinarily poor judgment."

"I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've ever seen since I've been in government," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Saturday.

Mikey's agency houses the same dopes who thought firing ex-cons from railroad jobs in Chicago would make America safer. It only took Homeland Security five years after 9/11 to realize tanker cars carry nasty chemicals up and down the country.

Anyway, Peppermint Patty got pushed under some railroad cars himself, except CNN said that Pat's old boss said that Pat sent in an email, and said it was all his fault and he's taking full responsibility and he's resigning his FEMA job and he's not taking the Intelligence job either.

So there. No more phony press conferences from FEMA. They're too busy waiting to stand down when the next Katrina hits and wait for either the governor or the President to tell them to get their asses in gear.

The sheriff, his wife, a mistress, and lots of cash All is not bikinis and beach bums in the O.C. Mike Carona is the sheriff with an odd taste for women named Deb. He married one and played "hide the nightstick" with the other.

Those patient, understanding women had a lot to gain from Mikey. Lots and lots of cash. Whatever issues they might have with being the other woman didn't stop them from working together to make sweet, sweet profits...

The gifts -- primarily from former Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl -- included cash payments of as much as $112,000, a boat, a trip to Lake Tahoe and ringside tickets to the Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad title fight at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, the indictment says.

Mikey's been at this for almost ten years, the Feds are saying. They indicted Sheriff Mike, which should mean he'll be trading in the brown uniform shirt for a uniform orange jumpsuit. He's facing 105 years in jail.

This probably rules out any more talk of America's Sheriff heading to Sacramento. If he'd kept himself under control, he could have legally looted taxpayers like every other politician. But he got greedy and started too early.

Image courtesy LA Times

How profane was that profanity? A country radio station in Austin cut loose Sammy Allred for dropping a little something on the airwaves. He'd been there 35 years. That sounds like purgatory to me.

If it was a classical music station, I'd think it was one of Dante's circles of Hell. With country you can at least fantasize about Carrie Underwood or Shania Twain. The second chair tuba player, not so much.

Country's supposed to be a rougher music genre anyway. Johnny Cash probably would have left the bodies of Dashboard Confessional in a ditch somewhere if they crossed paths. The Man In Black took one of Trent Reznor's songs, and now if you hear NIN doing "Hurt" it sounds like a bad Cash cover.

So what did Allred say to the audience in Austin, which was in Texas last time I saw something about South by Southwest. How do you offend Texans? Did he say 'gun control'? 'Vanilla latte'? 'Cowboys suck'?

I bounced through a bunch of blogs to see if I could find out what he said on the air. F-bomb? C-bomb, which would be more like a nuke, really. He's not talking, and no one seems to know. Weird.