From press box to front office

Mets general manager Omar Minaya went into full blame-the-messenger mode after the club fired team executive Tony Bernazard, whose bizarre behavior first was reported by the New York Daily News‘ Adam Rubin. After Minaya basically said Rubin wrote the stories in some kind of effort to get himself a front-office job, Mets chief Jeff Wilpon said Tuesday his GM messed up and should apologize to Rubin.

Rubin acknowledged he had spoken with Wilpon in general terms about how to approach landing a job in baseball. It’s not unprecedented for a sportswriter to end up with a top position in a club’s front office. A long time ago, I covered Philadelphia Flyers games with Ned Colletti, now GM of the Dodgers. The late GM Harry Dalton began his career writing sports before he moved on to build baseball teams. Former NFL executive Ernie Accorsi wrote for a few newspapers, and while with The Philadelphia Inquirer, got the scoop on the 76ers’ trade of Wilt Chamberlain. Jim Miller, also an NFL executive, mostly with the Saints, covered sports for a couple of newspapers, including Baltimore’s Evening Sun, which once employed Accorsi, too.

And if any team is interested, I’m available.