NEW YORK -- Steve Phillips was fired yesterday as general manager of the listless New York Mets, a last-place team stuck with a lot of highly paid stars who failed to produce. With the Mets banged-up, booed at Shea Stadium and nowhere near the team that reached the 2000 World Series, owner Fred Wilpon called Phillips into his office. Phillips became the first GM in the majors to be fired this season.

"I wouldn't say he was surprised," Wilpon said. "It wasn't a long conversation."

Wilpon said he had been thinking about making the move "for a long time."

"I believe this is the right time to do it," he said. "The start of this season has been very disappointing."

Senior assistant general manager Jim Duquette took over on an interim basis through the end of the season and will be a candidate for the permanent position. Other names will surely be in the mix, with former Mets executive and current Montreal GM Omar Minaya certain to be prominent.

Duquette is the cousin of former Red Sox GM Dan Duquette.

"When I envisioned getting the role as the GM, this wasn't really the way that I envisioned it," he said in Texas, where the Mets were to play the Rangers.

A former infielder drafted by the Mets in 1981 ahead of Roger Clemens, Phillips took over as GM on July 16, 1997, and brought a lot of big names to Shea -- Mike Piazza, Tom Glavine, Al Leiter, Roberto Alomar, and Mo Vaughn among them. But not all those moves worked out as Phillips hoped.

"We all realize that if we were playing well and in first place, nobody is going to lose their job," Glavine said. "Nobody came into this season envisioning this would happen. Circumstances are what they are for any number of reasons."