I still have my baseball cards. And I still know a few guys that can quote statistics from memory. Then came Fantasy Baseball, a big business today. Once upon a time, it was a nerdy offshoot of a meeting of Strat-O-Matic baseball fans, with many of the characteristics of a poker game, and so was born, by the writer Dan Okrent, at La Rotisserie Francais, a restaurant in NYC, Rotisserrie Baseball. Bill James and the Saberticians added to the mix and now you have millions of players and way too many guys who think they can run a Major League team.

Yesterday, in the Mets front office, we witnessed a meeting of these worlds. Tony Bernazard, former big leaguer in charge of developing the Mets young players, was fired. The reasons for the move were presented in a series by a New York Daily News sportswriter, who has covered the Mets as a beat writer for seven years. In the series of articles, Adam Rubin, the Daily News writer, showed Bernazard in a bullying and boorish light. Apparently, Bernazard picked fights, bullyied prospects, played politics in the clubhouse and exercised his ego. The hubris that came with his job was remindful of Steve Phillips, onetime Met GM, who slept around. The real story was when Met GM Omar Minaya called a presser to announce his friend Bernazard’s fate. Minaya used the forum to out Rubin, for “lobbying” for a player development job in major league baseball, as a fallback position to Rubin’s job in the eroding newspaper business.

On the surface it looks like a “surreal” moment where Minaya stepped over the line. He regretted his comments later, but did not apologise to Rubin. What it really captured was an ultimate moment of second-guessing a front-office by a bunch of regular guys. A trend that has gained new traction in the world of team management. Meanwhile, Minaya has opened the door wide for his exit, perhaps providing an opening for an unknown “numbers guy.”

It has always been that you needed megabucks to gain ownership and influence the inner workings of a team. Jeff Wilpon, son-of-a-millionaire, who qualifies as Chief Operating Officer by bloodline, took this route. Like always, the Wilpons of the team decide on those who run the day-to-day. Traditionally, most of those roles were reserved to those who had paid their dues as players, managers and front office officials.

Omar Minaya toiled as an assistant GM, spoke Spanish and did a credible job temporarily running a crumbling Montreal Expos team. Tony Bernazard was a light-hitting infielder who lasted ten years in the Bigs. Adam Rubin had watched so much baseball and talked to so many people around the game, that he felt he knew what was wrong with the 47-51 Mets, 10 games out of first place. Minaya publicly suggested that Rubin thought he was qualified for a job selecting the players. By badmouthing Bernazard, Minaya inferred, Rubin was increasing his chances for that type of job.

Here’s why Rubin thinks his opinion was a good as the next guy’s. Michael Lewis’ “MoneyBall” showed us the trend away from “old school” baseball people and hunches, to a numbers-based system. Once-upon-a-time, if you hadn’t played the game, you weren’t qualified to judge. Joe Torre, reinforced this in his recent tome, “The Yankee Years,” where he talked about debating Brian Cashman, a new-school stat guy, about “measuring a player’s heart.” But Boston’s Theo Epstein and Cleveland’s Mark Shapiro never played the game at a high level, if at all. They are Ivy Leaguers and took a new analytical approach. Oakland’s Billy Beane was a highly rated prospect, but a failure as a player. His success as a GM only came when he completely re-thought the talent evaluator process. Beane surrounded himself with “numbers guys” and de-accented his long-time scouts. Before long, a new front office emerged. A front office where just about anyone can end up running the team.

Cashman went to Georgetown and works for the two unaccomplished sons of owner George Steinbrenner, a son-in-law that was discovered cutting the lawn of one of the Steinbrenner daughters, and two Wall Street/City Hall types (Lonn Trost and Randy Levine). Adam Rubin was an “inside guy” with access to the inner workings. In today’s environment, why wouldn’t he think he could run a major league team?

Steve Swindal would have been atop the Yankee heirarchy had he not got caught in a DUI and stepping out on his wife. David Kahn, the new VP/GM of the Minnesota Timberwolves was a reporter for “The Oregonian.” Pete Rozelle was once an NFL PR man. Starting with the original “Beer Baron” owners there was a time when money could make you a “baseball man.” Now the moneymen, in the search for the “next new thing,” will consider almost any option. It’s brought on a new world discovered yesterday, where old-school baseball men are clashing with the Rotisserries.