Willie Randolph, Television Superstar

Recently, a lot of people have been coming up to me to talk about one of the many amazing commercials starring yours truly. If you've watched a Mets game in the last month, then you've definitely seen an ad that's run nearly every commercial break (along with those two incredibly upbeat cancer commercials). It features scenes from games and a quote by me: "What are you going to do. . . Come here and fool around? Play the game." People tell me, "Willie, that line is brilliant. It gets me so amped to watch Mets games. It's no wonder that people call you the best motivator in sports." While that may be true, I need to clear something up. I was horribly misquoted. When I said that, "Come here and fool around" was meant to be the answer, not part of the question. The question mark is in the wrong spot! The reason I raise this issue is that it misrepresents me as a manager. While it's always a plus to win, the point of the game is to have fun. Just ask Jose Reyes. Why do you think I walked Bonds twice last night? Not to avoid "getting beat" by him like I said to reporters. It's because I thought it would be funny to watch him hobble around the bases. Too bad Alou's titanic home run allowed him to jog slowly across home plate. And Victor Zambrano? He's still in the rotation because Rick Peterson and I have a running bet during home games to see how early the fans will start booing him. I won last week with "during pre-game introductions." If I win two more bets, Rick has agreed to cut his mullet. Gambling sure makes the game a lot more fun.

Instead of preparing for tonight's game, I think I'm gonna launch an investigation into finding out who's responsible for this mixup. Probably a woman. Like my buddy Keith Hernandez once told me, "I won't say women belong in the kitchen. But they don't belong in the television studio." Truer words have never been spoken.