The Mets beat Josh Johnson last night. Seriously, it happened. Look it up. Sure they didn't exactly "beat" him as much as "win a game in which he pitched." And maybe they had to literally hit him with baseballs in the hand to get him out of the game. But, still, a win is a win. And in Queens, these days, that one was monumental. So it's exciting times at Citi Field. The Mets are ... Wright and Reyes have ... How bout that ... oh forget it. The Mets stink.
Even with the win, they're mired in last place in the NL East, 6.5 games out of first, 5.5 games out of the Wild Card and even a game behind the Washington F'n Nationals, a team that has celebrated its move to our nation's capital with back-to-back #1 overall draft picks. The team's best active starting pitcher (as opposed to the one on the DL with no elbow or the one on the DL with no shoulder) sports an ERA of 4.78, a mere 3.14 runs behind the league leader and it's fading closer stands to make $17.5m for finishing 50 games, leaving the team awkwardly hoping NOT to win many close games. To add to the misery, the best overall position players on the roster are, in no particular order: (1) out with a broken back (presumably from hauling around the expectations of all 15 remaining Mets fans); (2) without the functional knees; (3) about to be traded; (5) apparently still concussed; and (4) named Ike. Oh yeah, the team is also being sued for ohhh, something like $1 billion for ownership's "role" in the Madoff scandal.
(Quick note on the Madoff thing. We're not saying that Wilpon and Katz knew that Madoff was a fraud but anyone who managed to accumulate enough wealth through your business acumen to buy a BASEBALL team in New York City and then started receiving 20% returns on their hedge fund investments, well ... they fucking knew. Maybe they didn't know exactly how it was happening but they knew something wasn't right. And now they have the balls to want to keep the money they "withdrew." Guess, what, it's not your money. You didn't get a return on your investment. It's stolen from someone else who didn't act fast enough. like you did. So give it back. Assholes.)
All those things are bad. And they all deserve a spot on the list. But none of them is Reason 4,723. That spot is reserved for the most reviled of players in Mets franchise history - Roberto Martin Antonio Bonilla. His friends called him "Bobby." Mets fans (none of which would ever be confused with friends) called him "Dickhead." Why dredge up such bad memories, now? Well, we received word from one of our Philly fan friends (who no doubt wanted to torture us) that ol' Bob-O was about to start collecting $30m in deferred salary from his days with the Mets. Yes, that's right. The Mets are playing one of the most disappointing players, in a long history of disappointing players, to ever don the orange and blue $30m over the next 25 years.
Our first baseball memories are from the magical season of 1986. We vaguely recall watching the Mets win the World Series on our tiny black and white tv as we fell asleep. Whether this actually happened or we just made it up, that, and the fact that the team boasted plays with kid-friendly names like Doc, Strawberry and Mookie, and that was enough to make our six year old ass a Mets fan. The memories we are sure we actually do have began with a shocking loss to the Dodgers in 1988 and the subsequent series of moves that doomed both the franchise and any chance we had of actually loving baseball. At the top of that list stands, defiantly and rotundly, Bobby Bonilla. Maybe Hubie Brooks was worse on the field. And maybe Vince Coleman was worse off it. But nobody seemed embodied all that was wrong about the Mets than Bobby-Bo, a guy who just really didn't seem to give a shit.
And why should he have. After few excellent seasons teamed with Barry Bonds (in his normal head-size era) he came to New York and was showered with a, huge at the time, 5 year, $29 million dollar deal. It's been said that money changes people. But it really doesn't, it only magnifies their best or worst traits. Bonilla was a bad guy in Pittsburgh, allegedly assaulting a clubhouse attendant because he wouldn't segregate the Bonilla family from the commoners in the stands. In New York, the rich Bonilla was even more of a problem, threatening to show Bob Klapisch "the Bronx", complaining to the scorer about being charged with errors and just generally being a problem. His underwhelming, but not disastrous, combined .267, 73 homeruns (including a career-high 34) and 224 RBIs didn't help so, in the midst of his best season (hitting .325 with 18 home runs and 53 RBIs in 80 games) the Mets took their first, best opportunity and moved him, just to get away from the stink. In proof that the universe is screwed up, he went on to have an excellent season in Baltimore and, disgustingly, win a World Series with the rent-a-team Florida Marlins. If that was the end of the story, it would have been fine. But, of course, since they're the Mets, it wasn't.
No, in 1999, during the pennant race, the Mets thought it prudent to go out and reaquire the man who had once laid waste to their fair clubhouse. Not surprisingly, he fought with manager Bobby Valentine's and ended his tenure with a bang by playing cards in the clubhouse as the Mets were eliminated from the playoffs by the hated Atlanta Braves. After that little card game, the Mets rightfully released Bonilla and the rest of his career passed without incident with his most enduring accomplishment being injured as a Cardinal and replaced by an unheralded rookie named Albert Pujols.
Again, if that was the end, it would barely be worth discussion. He would have faded off into bolivian. But because they are still the Mets it, or course, isn't. You see, instead of just paying him the $5.9m they owed Bonilla when they released him, the Mets decided to defer it. For 11 years. Anyone who's ever had a credit card or owed the Mob money knows when you defer making payments, it grows. A lot. So that $5.9m, it's now $30m. And the Mets, who can't afford to keep ownership of the team or players like Jose Reyes, will be paying almost $2m a year to Bonilla until 2035 as an eternal reminder of their ineptitude.
That, friends, is Reason 4,723 why it sucks to be a Mets fan.
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The deferred payments go hand in hand with the Madoff investments though. The Wilpons probably thought they were getting a deal when they deferred Bonilla's salary for 11 years at 8% interest when they could invest that $5.9M with Madoff for 20% returns. They should've just paid him in '99.
ReplyDeleteThat's really an excellent point. If I had thought of it this might have been a much more compelling read.
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