Phillips bunted from slumping Mets

"I wouldn't say he was surprised. It wasn't a long conversation."

Fred Wilpon, owner of the New York Mets

Steve Phillips was fired as general manager of the listless New York Mets, a last-place team stuck with a lot of highly paid stars who failed to produce.

With the Mets banged-up, booed at Shea Stadium and nowhere near the team that reached the 2000 World Series, owner Fred Wilpon called Phillips into his office Thursday. Phillips became the first GM in the majors to be fired this season.

"I wouldn't say he was surprised," Wilpon said. "It wasn't a long conversation."

Senior assistant general manager Jim Duquette took over on an interim basis through the end of the season and will be a candidate for the permanent position.

A former infielder drafted by the Mets in 1981 ahead of Roger Clemens, Phillips took over as GM on July 16, 1997, and brought a lot of big names to Shea -- Mike Piazza, Tom Glavine, Al Leiter, Roberto Alomar, Mo Vaughn and Mike Hampton, among them. But not all of those moves worked out the way Phillips hoped.

"We all realize that if we were playing well and in first place, nobody is going to lose their job," Glavine said. "Nobody came into this season envisioning this would happen. Circumstances are what they are for any number of reasons."

Floundering at 28-35 despite the second-highest payroll in the majors, Wilpon vowed things would "heat up" as the July 31 trading deadline approaches. Alomar may be among the first to go -- there's been speculation about a deal to send the slumping second baseman to Boston.

Wilpon said he asked Phillips to consider a future role with the team. A call to Phillips' cell phone was not returned.

Though Phillips and manager Bobby Valentine did not always agree, the Mets reached postseason play in consecutive seasons for the first time ever, culminated by their loss to the Yankees in the five-game Subway Series in 2000.

Phillips' tenure was marked trades and free-agent signings that brought All-Stars to the Mets. But with a huge payroll to work with, he also obtained several high-salaried players who did not contribute a lot -- Vaughn, Alomar, Jeromy Burnitz and Roger Cedeno, for example.

A big payroll "doesn't ensure that you're going to win," Wilpon said. "We've learned that painfully."

Phillips also was criticized for cutting off contract talks with free-agent shortstop Alex Rodriguez before the 2001 season. A-Rod eventually signed a US$252 million, 10-year deal with Texas.

Plus, there were plenty of off-the-field problems, with the lowlight perhaps being the report that at least seven players used marijuana during a last-place finish last year.