It was late May and the host asked, "Do you think the Red Sox will send Jon Lester down to the minors?""Whaaa …" I stammered."He's not pitching well," the host continued. "Callers are saying he's got to go.""He's 24, he's got the best stuff of any left-hander in baseball, he's won in the World Series, he was an ace down the stretch last year, everyone believes he'll turn it around, and if, by chance, he doesn't, the Red Sox don't make the playoffs.""The callers and most of our anchors have had it," the host said."Bobby Knight was, as usual, right," I said. "If you listen to the guys in the stands, pretty soon you'll be sitting up there with them."In late September of 2005, the Indians were closing on the White Sox, and "SportsCenter" was leading with the story of the chase. The Indians were good and they were hot, but a Chicago sports shock jock ranted about GM Kenny Williams' being fired because he didn't trade for a hitter at the July 31 deadline. The fact that no significant hitter was traded at the deadline didn't enter into the discussion. And the White Sox won the World Series. Shouting is easy. Talk radio didn't approve of Red Sox players' coming back to Fenway Park for a modest celebration after they backed into the AL wild card. I wore my Don Mattingly Baseball Academy shirt Wednesday because Don Mattingly was a great player, is an even better human being, and the only time he ever got to celebrate a playoff berth in his career was in his final season when the Yankees won the wild card.News today travels by cell phone or by satellite or over the Internet, and its immediacy demands instant gratification for questions raised. The easy part of the answer, of course, is fault. Mark Shapiro never felt that the 2009 fall of the Cleveland Indians was Eric Wedge's fault, or that any other manager could have done better with Grady Sizemore and Jake Westbrook hurt, with Travis Hafner declining after shoulder surgery, and with an Ohio economy that after the Indians got to within a game of the 2007 World Series forced ownership to move the contracts of CC Sabathia, Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee, knowing that by the end of the 2010 season all would be gone to free agency.The Dolans understands that Shapiro has developed an organization that has inherent stability given its fiscal restraints in the free agent, amateur and developmental markets. Even with this season's disappointments, the Indians' stability has enabled them to twice win more than 90 games over the past five season, beat the Yankees in an ALDS, get to within a game of the World Series and maintain an average of 83 wins in a Rust Belt division in which 83 wins in 2009 would have kept them in contention until the final weekend.When a team loses close to $20 million, when it struggles to win 70 games, when it sees attendance at The Jake dwindle from close to 43,000 a game during a much different time to 22,144 with staggering declines in both the population and job markets, someone had to go. So Wedge was offered up to the fan base.Reality is that when The Jake was full every night and the Indians were a nightly bash happening, the Ohio economy was far different. There was no NFL franchise. The Cavaliers played in the suburbs. LeBron James was 10 when the Indians played the Braves in the 1995 World Series.Reality is that for the Indians to win 90 games, little can go wrong. In spring training, they knew that Lee and Fausto Carmona had to throw 400-something good innings combined, and Sizemore, Hafner, Martinez and Jhonny Peralta had to have productive seasons. When the majority of their key factors didn't work, someone had to go as Asdrubal Cabrera, Michael Brantley, Matt LaPorta and Carlos Santana prepared to step onto the stage. People in Toronto want the baseball and Canadian climates to be what they were when the Blue Jays were world champions and had the game's highest payroll. That isn't going to happen, of course. Reality is that whereas three years ago the 2010 payroll was projected to be between $110 million and $120 million, now it may be $80 million, tops. Oh, the Jays have won six in a row and are finishing strong. They have two young stars in Aaron Hill and Adam Lind who have hit 35 homers apiece -- the Phillies are the only other team with a pair of 35 home run hitters, with Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth -- and another one coming in Travis Snider and a rookie (Ricky Romero) who has won 13 games. In the AL East, teams other than the Yankees and Red Sox cannot afford to lose Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum and have Vernon Wells suffer through a down season. For the Jays, the easy human sacrifice is GM J.P. Ricciardi, who has become the media's fault line. If they can't sign Roy Halladay, the next general manager will get about 60 percent of what Ricciardi could have gotten at the trade deadline had he been allowed to deal him within the division. Given how far the Giants came this season and how Brian Sabean has restocked the organization to the point that it should be a contender in the National League West for the next several years, it seems hard to believe that there is any question that Sabean and Bruce Bochy should run that franchise for the foreseeable future. But clouds keep appearing. Two Mays ago, the Yankees were in quicksand when they played the Mets. At the time, the New York media was roasting Brian Cashman, and upon reading some particularly savage attacks on his Yankees cohort in the Sunday papers, Omar Minaya called me at my hotel. He felt the criticism was over the top and unfair and wanted to talk about it, because that's the kind of person Omar Minaya happens to be.Last week, an American League general manager penned a letter to Minaya. "I just wanted to remind Omar what he's done for our game," says the GM. "Considering where he came from and all he's done in and for the game and for other people, I wanted to remind him what a giant figure he is in our business."It doesn't take Bill James to see that the Mets have the third-worst record in the National League. And someone has to pay. Tony Bernazard was well-sacrificed. Now several of Minaya's aides have either been fired or have quit. Oh, the fact that they have played most of the season with more than $75 million worth of players on the disabled list -- including their best pitcher (Johan Santana), one of their two best players (Carlos Beltran) and an All-Star shortstop (Jose Reyes), not to mention the trauma suffered by David Wright -- now seems lost in the need for someone's taking the blame and being put in the public stocks. And that someone apparently is Minaya.Remember, Mets ownership does not care to pay above-slot money in the draft, like the Yankees and Red Sox. Its scouting people are not allowed to go above slot, and the joke around the American League East when Billy Wagner was given to the Red Sox was that Boston got him because Mets ownership didn't want to pay the $3-5 million required to sign the two draft choices it would have received if it had held onto Wagner and allowed him to become a free agent after the season. There are deeper-seated problems than a focus on how Minaya articulates in press conferences, especially in a sport that for 130 years has embodied our society's immigration patterns.Despite ownership's dismissal of the draft and the refusal to hire a Sandy Alderson or some experienced baseball CEO, the Mets are gradually building beneath the surface of a major league roster that opened Citi Field at the cost of a high payroll and a moratorium on developmental costs. Still, Ike Davis, the Mets' first-round pick in 2008, was signed at slot and has a chance to be a very good player. Brad Holt, a sandwich pick in 2008, was a slot sign. They had no No. 1 pick this June.And now we're being told that under Minaya the Mets have wasted money in Latin America. Really? This sounds like the not-so-subtle racial snickering about Minaya's signing too many Latin players when he took over.Minaya took over in 2005. And since 2005, there are exactly three players signed from the Dominican, Venezuela, Panama or Colombia who have reached the major leagues: Cincinnati's Pedro Viola, signed at 22; the Cubs' Esmailin Caridad, signed at 24; and Fernando Martinez, signed by the Mets at 16. If you sign a 16- or 17-year-old and ask for him to be in the big leagues in less than five years, you do not understand this business.Everyone in New York loved the J.J. Putz deal at the time. To get Putz, the Mets had to give up 22-year-old center fielder Ezequial Carrera, who was signed in 2005 for $13,000 and this season led the Southern League in on-base percentage and and batting average. RHP Jenrry Mejia was one of the best pitching prospects in the Eastern League at the age of 19. He was signed for $16,500. Ruben Tejada held his own in the same league at 19, and cost $38,000. Jeurys Familia was the organization's minor league pitcher of the year at 19, and cost $100,000. Wilmer Flores was outstanding in the South Atlantic League at 18, and cost $700,000 -- a far cry from the bonuses handed out by the Giants, Cardinals and other teams that have had some disasters. Martinez's $1.7 million bonus was the highest given out in the Minaya years, and he got to the majors in four years. The Mets' biggest international bonus this year was given to Venezuelan pitcher Juan Urbina at $1.2 million, but the Mets' 2009 international signing total is 10th, right behind the Minnesota Twins.The Mets' Dominican academy and its focus on education and cross-culturalization is a model for the industry. "When you sign teenagers in Latin America, the expected time of arrival averages out to eight years," says a highly respected international scouting director. One farm director points to all the factors involved in cross-culturalization, such as the players' physical and nutritional development. The players must learn to use skills in a body that may become three inches taller and 40 pounds heavier during a five-year process. Bobby Cox created stability in Atlanta when he built the development system, turned it over to John Schuerholz and went downstairs to manage it. Theo Epstein had to quit and win internal wars to bring stability to the Boston organization. Hal Steinbrenner has allowed Cashman to do the same for the Yankees. Minnesota has it, and even in Florida, Jeffrey Loria is smart enough to put a stable organization in place despite the economic restraints. Tampa Bay is trying to do the same. But in most markets, there is a need for someone to take the blame. Cubs fans bemoan what they call a disastrous season, although the team will finish with its third straight winning record for the first time in 37 years. Ned Yost was fired in late September last season in the midst of the Brewers' first trip to the postseason since 1982, and now that Cecil Cooper and Wedge have gone, more will follow. Maybe Ricciardi. Suggesting that Lester should be sent to the minor leagues was a knee-jerk response to what at the time were mechanical flaws. What brought the Indians into the rearview mirror of the White Sox in 2005 was a combination of Cleveland's talent and Chicago's three-week batting slump. We know how both turned out.Wedge was fired because of complex issues stemming from a few flawed decisions throughout the organization in a city that cannot forgive mistakes. The Mets' infrastructure couldn't absorb an epidemic of injuries.Wedge's firing was hard on Shapiro, who respected his manager. Shapiro understands the gray areas at the heart of these matters. And when he drives home at night, he listens to the radio and tunes out the screams of the voices demanding human sacrifice. Right decisions can produce the wrong results, and the best of intentions doesn't guarantee consistent contention. With hundreds of millions of dollars invested and Johnny from Far Rockaway calling on line four, someone has to pay.