'Daily News' Shoots Back at Mets Claim Against Sportswriter

By: Joe Strupp The suggestion by New York Mets General Manager Omar Minaya that a New York Daily News writer had written negative stories about a Mets executive in order to get a job with the team has drawn fierce criticism from the Daily News, and even the rival New York Post.

Minaya, in a press conference Monday to announce the firing of Mets Vice President of Player Development Tony Bernazard, accused Daily News sportswriter Adam Rubin of writing about some questionable acts by Bernazard in an effort to have him removed so that Rubin could get a job within the team.

"Adam, you gotta understand this, Adam, for the past couple of years, has lobbied for a player development position," Minaya said, in part, during the Monday event, according to the Post. "He has lobbied myself, he has lobbied Tony, so when these things came out ... I had to think about it."

Daily News Editor-In-Chief Martin Dunn took exception to the accusations, releasing a statement that said: "This was a well-reported, well-researched, exclusive story, and it's a shame that the Mets deemed fit to cast aspersions on our reporter instead of dealing with the issues at hand. We stand by Adam 1,000%."

Rubin himself shot back at Minaya during the press conference, broadcast live on local radio and cable TV, showing shock that he would be singled out for writing stories that ended up being true, true enough for the Mets to fire Bernazard.

The writer also defended himself in today's paper with a column that detailed his reporting and claimed Minaya acted unfairly in his comments.

"I want to get something straight," he wrote. "Everything I wrote about Tony Bernazard - bombshell stories that appeared in the pages of the Daily News over the last week - is accurate."

Later in the column, he wrote: "But instead of focusing on the horrors Bernazard inflicted upon Mets farmhands and team employees, Minaya tried to redirect the story from Bernazard's reprehensible actions -- which were validated or the Mets wouldn't have fired Bernazard -- to me. In an attempt to link my reporting to occasional discussions with Mets front office people about possible careers in baseball, Minaya basically left the impression that I had written the stories with some kind of ulterior motive in mind."

The entire column is here.

Meanwhile, other sportswriters and commentators blasted Minaya for wrongly accusing Rubin, among them the Daily News' rival, the New York Post, where columnist Jay Greenberg wrote: "Whatever ulterior motives Minaya may have been wishing upon a writer who had asked members of several organizations about potential career entry into baseball, hadn't the GM admitted to already knowing Mets' HR department had been investigating Bernazard's behavior of the kinds described by Rubin?"