Why did the Mets let Willie Randolph fly to the West Coast with his team? Why did the club allow him to manage one more game before firing him in the middle of the night?

Because the organization is a huge mess, as ESPN.com’s Buster Olney tells us:

“In the past month, and especially in the past 96 hours, they needed GM Omar Minaya to bluntly say to everyone in the room that what they proposed to do was embarrassing for the organization, beneath the dignity of any professional business. They needed Minaya to insist they come up with something else.

“But instead, the circus played out fully, without the elephants or the tigers but with plenty of clowns lurking in the shadows. Minaya and his assistant, Tony Bernazard, walked around the lobby of the team hotel Monday ‘like grim reapers,’ in the eyes of a staff member. And after weeks of leak-fed speculation and boardroom backstabbing and indecision, they did their bidding, fired manager Willie Randolph, pitching coach Rick Peterson and first-base coach Tom Nieto.

“Even the writers of ‘The Sopranos’ could not have invented a more recklessly handled hit. The process really started after last season’s collapse, when Minaya — who came to the Mets having been promised full autonomy and, for more than a year, has had all the power of a marionette — first regressed into lawyer-speak. ‘Willie is the manager,’ Minaya said over and over, as if repeating the phrase would somehow give the crafted but flimsy words backbone and fool anyone into thinking that Randolph wasn’t one really bad day away from being fired.”

That’s no way to run a franchise, people.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while the Lakers recover from that painful Game 6 thrashing:

• Will Los Angeles come back next season with a tougher team, one capable of playing some defense?
• Will Kobe Bryant come back prepared to win a title, as opposed to talking about a title?
• Or do Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen have enough legs left to keep Boston on top for a while?

LETTERMAN’S LIST

CBS funnyman David Letterman offered his “Top Ten Signs An NBA Game Is Fixed.” They included:

• Game begins 20 minutes before visiting team arrives.
• Tip-off always goes to the player with the largest salary.
• At the end of the first quarter, the score is 179 to 2.
• Missed three-pointers count for two points if they’re “pretty close.”
• One of the Laker Girls looks suspiciously like Pete Rose.
• Whenever he’s open, referee takes a shot.
• Scoreboard has disclaimer: “All Scores Approximate.”
• The team loses even though it led in points, delegates and the popular vote.
• Jack Nicholson scores 25 points from his seat.
• The Knicks win.

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

J.A. Adande, ESPN.com, on Bryant: “Losing always hurts, but this time he can’t unleash and demand a trade the way he did last summer. Not after he got a bunch of hard-working teammates who came back better, then an All-Star big man at a Euros-for-dollars exchange rate. There would have been something karmically wrong about a guy being rewarded with a championship a year after he trashed his teammates and the organization. Bryant needs to be quiet this summer, and maybe even work out harder. He’s known as a fitness fanatic, but he faded in the latter stages of the last two games, his jumpers coming up shorter and shorter.”

Jerry Greene, Orlando Sentinel: “Wouldn’t it have been cool if three big, burly fans had ducked under the ropes to carry Tiger down the 18th fairway Sunday? But then I realized the better image was inspired by Kerri Strug doing the one-footed vault. How great would it had been after it was over if Steve Williams had dropped the bag and swept up Tiger in his arms?”

Jeff Schultz, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “The U.S. Open playoff round was great theater Monday - for the 17 people who didn’t have to go back to work. The USGA’s tiebreaker rule is lame. Imagine a World Series game being tied after nine innings and Bud Selig deciding to play nine more the next day.”

Steve Rosenbloom, ChicagoSports.com: “No question, this was a great story, not just for golf, but for all-time. Fighting though that misery, Tiger’s tale was better than Michael with food poisoning in the NBA Finals in Utah. This was certainly better than Willis Reed getting just four points in an overblown performance almost four decades ago. This was better than Jack Youngblood playing a Super Bowl on a broken leg. This might’ve been better than anything we’ve ever seen, and there’s something to be said for the chance to witness history.”

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “The Marlins are on pace to hit around 250 home runs. The record is 264 by the ‘97 Mariners. Hmm — 264 — why does that number sound familiar? Is that the Marlins’ attendance average?”

Dan Daly, Washington Times: “Surprisingly, Viagra and Cialis have yet to be added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned drugs, and they’re expected to show up at this summer’s Olympics. (Insert your own pole vault joke here.)”

MEGAPHONE

“My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century. They need to grow up and join the 21st century. I’ve got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He’s going to be out. I don’t like that, and it’s about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s.”

Yankees executive Hank Steinbrenner, demanding that the National League adopt the DH rule.