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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
- 7/1/2023
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
It’s funny how Aj Winningham of CNN and many others like to remind us every July 1st how Bobby Bonilla day continues to be one of the longest running jokes in the Mlb as well as one of the most crafty deals ever struck since despite not walking back onto the field to play another inning Bobby will be collecting a million-dollar check every year. Thanks to the deal that was brokered during his playing days when the Mets wanted to badly to get rid of him Bonilla will be seeing a yearly check until he’s in his 70s thanks
Five Actors Who Should Play Bobby Bonilla in a Movie...
Five Actors Who Should Play Bobby Bonilla in a Movie...
- 7/20/2019
- by Tom
- TVovermind.com
Bryce Harper just signed a monster deal for 13 seasons with no opt-out clause and a no-trade clause. However, even at that length, the Harper contract details won’t come near the ridiculous Bobby Bonilla contract details — a contract that is still active to this day. Just to catch people up to date, the Bryce Harper contract details call for the superstar to make $330 million over 13 seasons. While it is not as high per year as the Manny Machado contract, it is the highest overall total a player has ever been paid in Mlb. Neither Harper nor the […]
The post Bryce Harper’s new contract still won’t match length of Ichiro and Bobby Bonilla contract details appeared first on Monsters and Critics.
The post Bryce Harper’s new contract still won’t match length of Ichiro and Bobby Bonilla contract details appeared first on Monsters and Critics.
- 3/1/2019
- by Shawn S. Lealos
- Monsters and Critics
Here's Bobby Bonilla ... with a big ol' smile on his face -- because he just got his annual $1 Million check from the NY Mets! You've probably heard of "Bobby Bonilla Day" -- every July 1, Bobby gets $1.19 million stemming from a contract he signed back in his playing days. Instead of paying Bobby the $5.9 million they owed him back in 2000 ... his agent negotiated a deferred payment deal with the Mets in which they send him an annual $1.19 mil check until 2035!!!! So,...
- 7/16/2018
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
Bobby Bonilla, as a result of a buy-out agreement with the New York Mets, receives more than $1 million a year for 25 years, which started back in 2011. Bobby Bonilla’s Payday Annually, on July 1 Bonilla gets $1,193,248.20. The Mets released Bonilla in 1999, and two years later he retired from the Mlb. At […]
The post Ex-mlb Player Bobby Bonilla Paid $1.2 Million A Year By New York Mets appeared first on uInterview.
The post Ex-mlb Player Bobby Bonilla Paid $1.2 Million A Year By New York Mets appeared first on uInterview.
- 7/1/2015
- by Chelsea Regan
- Uinterview
The New York Mets organization isn't exactly known for its exquisite taste in financial partners. This is a franchise, after all, that recently settled a lawsuit stemming from its association with Bernard L. Madoff for $162 million. So it was amusing when Michelle Malkin and other right-wing commentators reacted to the news that comedian Bill Maher had purchased a minority stake in the team with the kind of moral indignation they normally reserve for things like taxes, or efforts to remove the Ten Commandments from suburban courtrooms.
Naturally, nobody found the spectacle more amusing than the new owner himself, who has been known to ridicule the right on his HBO political-comedy series, "Real Time With Bill Maher." "You know they saw this yesterday and went, 'Bill Maher? Owns part of a baseball team? Aaaargghh!'" Maher told The Huffington Post. "And then they had to figure out why they were mad.
Naturally, nobody found the spectacle more amusing than the new owner himself, who has been known to ridicule the right on his HBO political-comedy series, "Real Time With Bill Maher." "You know they saw this yesterday and went, 'Bill Maher? Owns part of a baseball team? Aaaargghh!'" Maher told The Huffington Post. "And then they had to figure out why they were mad.
- 6/5/2012
- by Michael Hogan
- Huffington Post
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