Haunted by collapse, Willie Randolph says Mets lacked 'killer instinct'

As darkness slips over the suburbs, the manager of the New York Mets is driving down a narrow, leafy road in northern Bergen County, the trees thick with golden leaves, his mind cluttered with a much less glorious residue - a forest of thoughts that are both unsettling and unending.

It is a week before Thanksgiving. The long-running Alex Rodriguez drama has drawn to a close, with him opting back in. Barry Bonds has a new indictment to go with his asterisk-bearing ball in the Hall of Fame. For Willie Randolph, the hardest offseason of his life has included no blaring back pages, no court proceedings, nothing but a wearisome drumbeat of mental rewinds and probing reflections, none of which, of course, can do anything to alter the seven-week-old history, an epic collapse that saw his team surrender a seven-game lead with 17 games to play. Continue