New York Mets Deliver A Huge Check To Former Outfielder To Celebrate ‘Bobby Bonilla Day’

Bruce Haring
·2 min read
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Every July 1, former New York Mets slugger Bobby Bonilla changes his tune. Instead of “I’ll show you the Bronx,” Bonilla says, “Show me the money.”

Bonilla hasn’t played in the major leagues for 22 years, but each July 1 he picks up a check for nearly $1.2 million from the club. That’s more than some all-star players make per year.

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The sweet deal was negotiated by Bonilla’s agent Dennis Gilbert at a time when the Mets (then owned by the Wilpon family) were scrapping for cash.

Bonilla had a checkered career for the Mets. He was on the team from 1992 to 1995, then came back for a year in 1999. He is best remembered for his confrontation with reporter Bob Klapisch, the co-author of the book, “The Worst Team Money Can Buy,’ a review of a season in which the Mets, with baseball’s highest payroll, lost 90 games (sound familiar, current fans?) Bonilla got in a heated exchange in the Mets clubhouse with Klapisch, threatening to “show him the Bronx.” It was not an invitation for a tour.

The Mets wanted to terminate Bonilla in 1999, but he still had $6 million left on his contract. Gilbert proposed that owner Fred Wilpon defer payments until 2011 with an 8% annual interest rate.

That meant that Bonilla would get $1,193,248.20 every year until 2035. Bonilla will be 72 when his contract with the team expires. He is currently 59.

In total, Bonilla will get $29.8 million because of Wilpon’s blunder.

Bonilla’s deal is sizable, but it’s not the only deferred payment owed to former and current players. It sticks out more because the Wilpons never received the huge payments they believed they would get from swindler Bernie Madoff, making the contract a financial albatross that kept the team mired in mediocrity for years.

Mets fans began celebrating the day as a tribute to the team’s folly. New owner Steve Cohen even joined in the joke, saying he’d like to celebrate the day at Citi Field.

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