Willie's new world: a crosstown move from the Yankees to the Mets presents all sorts of challenges for a rookie manager.(MLB)(Willie Randolph)

Willie Randolph makes a point of running from diamond to diamond to watch his players work out in spring training. That's the first-year Mets manager's style. It's also an appropriate approach for someone trying to energize a franchise that has sleepwalked through September the past three years. Randolph wants his players to adopt the same hustling style that helped make him one of the game's top second basemen a generation ago.

After 11 seasons as a coach with the Yankees, Randolph has his own team, one that has been second-class in New York for years. He is going from the most tradition-rich organization in baseball to a club that is calling itself the New Mets ...