Mets: Five of the worst memories during the Wilpon era

When one door closes another door opens. The Steve Cohen era is upon us ending the long tenure of the Wilpon Family and we all know they left us New York Mets fans with many bad memories to one day forget.

In 2002 Fred Wilpon became full owner of the New York Mets where he and his son Jeff were criticized for years. This was mainly because the Mets were not relevant for most of their tenure here but that fell heavily on the Wilpons.

We can go on for a while with Mets memories that will hurt forever and here are just a few honorable mentions to start things off. One would be the back-to-back collapses in 2007 and 2008 where the Mets were in position for postseason bids where they then just fell apart in final weeks back-to-back years.

Another would be the trading of prospect Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano without a physical which Zambrano was apparently pitching through elbow soreness and ended up with Tommy John surgery about a year or two later.

We also can’t forget about the firing of Willie Randolph at about three o’clock in the morning after just flying out to the west coast. Especially since it was the first night of the trip where the Mets even beat the Angels that night. We may not know whose official decision it was between the Wilpons or Omar Minaya but definitely was not a good look.

Some of these may not have been exclusively on the Wilpons but they definitely had an act in them and now let’s take a look at some moments that still have Mets fans scratching their heads.

Bernie Madoff Scandal

Bernie Madoff was the head operator of the largest Ponzi scheme in history when he was arrested in 2008 and pleaded guilty in 2009. In case you do not know a Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors.

One of those investors happened to be Fred Wilpon who was partners with his brother-in-law Saul Katz. In 2012 Fred Wilpon reached a settlement where he had to pay back up to one hundred sixty-two million dollars that he received from Madoff during the scandal.

Now the issue was two years prior to this settlement the MLB loaned the Mets twenty-five million dollars to help with the financial issues they were then dealing with. The loan was mostly because the Mets are based in New York which is considered a “big market” and when big market cities are successful in sports it helps those specific leagues.

Even with the loan from the MLB the Mets, who were never really big spenders under the Wilpons, continued to still not go after big free agent names year in and year out. They were even labeled as spending like a small market and it didn’t help the look with the Yankees being from the same city.

The Mets were then hearing the backlash from media, the fans, and even teams in the MLB. This pushed the Mets back a few more years and for a team that was coming off back-to-back collapses at the time in 2007 and 2008, this was not a good look on the Wilpon family.

Pedro forced to pitch a meaningless game

Heading into the 2005 season the Mets signed future Hall-of-Famer Pedro Martinez to a four-year contract. Martinez was set to get shut down during the season due to a toe injury according to Martinez in a book about the pitcher titled “Pedro.”

Martinez states in his book that after the alleged injury Jeff Wilpon forced him to pitch in a game against the then Florida Marlins. It was said because the matchup was set to be Pedro Martinez against Dontrelle Willis. At the time Willis was one of the most exciting young players in the game and in 2005 had arguably the best season of his career.

Jeff Wilpon wanted him to pitch because he knew it would be a ticket seller in a September game when the Mets knew they were not going to make the postseason that year. According to Martinez, he mentions that Jeff Wilpon told him in a conversation about the start:
“While I’m the boss here, you’re going to have to do what I say.”

This hurt the future of Pedro and the Mets since it shortened his recovery time for the 2006 season and led to another injury that kept Martinez out of the 2006 postseason when they Mets fell short to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games of the NLCS.

Pedro Martinez was angry about the situation but he doesn’t hold Jeff Wilpon accountable for the future injury when asked in an interview with the Times:
“When you’re going to get hurt, you’re going to get hurt. I don’t have anybody to blame but probably myself for not listening to my body. I think I was brave to pitch games, but I think I took it to extremes that day.”

This kind of sums up the Wilpons and how they were all about selling tickets just to get an increase in sales for them rather than the health of their ace. All Mets fans know they were definitely missing Pero Martinez in that 2006 postseason.

No tribute to the Mets in the new ballpark

When Citi Field opened in 2009 all Mets fans were excited for a new beginning even though it meant the closure of Shea Stadium. After the long wait for the new ballpark finally, it was time to get an inside glimpse of Citi Field.

As the season went by and more and more fans went to games a lot of fans had the same questions. Where is all the Mets history?

When you first walk in you see the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, which was put together great with the statue of Jackie Robinson’s number 42, who broke the color barrier in the MLB. It then has the escalators to lead you up to field level of Citi Field but when you get up there you do not see any Mets history.

The Mets were an expansion team of the two former NL New York Teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the New York Giants so the Jackie Robinson Rotunda was a nice touch since Jackie Robinson was a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

They did a great job of showing what the Mets were before they were the Mets but we did not see anything of the actual Mets. Nothing for the 1969 or 1986 World Serie teams, no hallway of Mets legends.

Now Fred Wilpon grew up in Brooklyn as a Dodgers fan so of course, there was nothing wrong with Dodgers and Giant’s reference but the fact that he had no Mets history had fans in a frenzy. Fred Wilpon did admit to maybe going a little overboard with the Dodgers references though.

During an interview with Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker Fred Wilpon admitted:
“All the Dodger stuff—that was an error of judgment on my part,”

Jeffrey Toobin said it best in his article:
“When Citi Field opened, the Brooklyn focus drew some criticism. After all, the Dodgers left Brooklyn in 1957, and Ebbets Field was demolished shortly thereafter. Only the very oldest fans have any first-hand memory of the place. The Mets, who had been in existence for almost a half century, were virtually ignored in their own home.”

The very next year in 2010 Citi Field introduced the Mets hall of fame and museum. The Wilpons took to the fan’s criticism and began to give them what they wanted. The museum included several displays including autographed memorabilia, original scouting reports on players such as Darryl Strawberry, and handwritten notes from Casey Stengel who was the first manager of the Mets.

As years went by Citi Field added more and more history of the actual New York Mets which pleased the fans.

Bobby Bonilla

Mets fans of all ages know about this one. July 1st of every year, well at least from 2011 through 2035, is known not only in New York but around the world as Bobby Bonilla Day. It is a day us Mets fans have to get poked at about year after year and well we deserve to at this point.

Back in 2000, the Mets agreed to buy out the remaining contract of Bobby Bonilla, who was an all-star in the majors but both stints with the Mets were not all-star caliber. When buying out Bonilla, the Mets owed him just under six million dollars but Bonilla and his agent came up with a deal that of course, Fred Wilpon accepted.

The deal was to defer his last payment for a decade and the Mets would pay him an annual payment of $1.19 million every July 1st. After July of 2035, Bonilla will have made just under thirty million dollars for a year in which he did not even play in a Mets uniform.

It was reported that Fred Wilpon accepted this deal mainly because he was heavily invested in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The ten percent returns he was supposed to get from Madoff was better than the eight percent interest that they would have owed Bonilla on his buyout.

Of course, the Mets being the Mets and Wilpons being the Wilpons, the Madoff Ponzi scheme came out and the Mets lost out on their investment with Madoff and Bobby Bonilla hit the jackpot getting paid once a year starting in 2011 when his last MLB game played was 2001.

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It has been a long, long time with the Wilpons but that time is finally over and hopefully us Mets fans do not have to see any more moments like these in the near future.