Happy Birthday America!!!
So we celebrated our nation's 245th birthday this weekend. As divided as we are (and I feel like we get more divided by the day) as bad as things seem to be (and they have been pretty bad), it's a good time to take stock in what is good. I will always believe that the overwhelming majority of our people are kind, caring and fundamentally decent. That when all is said and done, we just want happiness for our families and ourselves.
With that, onto the news…
SPORTS: Bobby Bonilla Day
July 1st is usually a fun day in sports. In normal non-pandemic years, it's usually the first day of free agency in both the NBA and NHL. Some years see lots of players on the move that day. This year, both leagues are still having their playoffs. The Stanley Cup looks like it might be wrapping up soon as the Lightning have made quick work of the suddenly coming back to earth Montreal Canadiens*. And the NBA Finals are pitting the Milwaukee Bucks against the Phoenix Suns. That should rival the M*A*S*H series finale in terms of TV ratings right? Especially if Bucks PF Giannis Anteokounmpo is out for an extended period of time.
So all that was left to discuss this past Thursday was Bobby Bonilla and the payout he gets every July 1st. This has become ridiculous. This year you couldn't get away from it if you tried.
So let me recap in case you don't know what I'm talking about.
The Mets had reacquired Bonilla before the 1999 season. They traded Mel Rojas, a relief pitcher who made Armando Benítez look like Mariano Rivera, to get him. It was basically trading one bum for another.
Bonilla was injured for most of the season and when he did play, it was not pretty. So they decided to release him after the 1999 season. They still owed him almost $6 million. The Mets and Bonilla's agent Dennis Gilbert agreed to defer the money for 10 years, then starting in 2011, pay him $1.9 million a year over 25 years. That would cover the principal and the interest.
This whole thing is actually beautifully explained in Devon Gordon's book So Many Ways to Lose. Now I'm no financial expert, but according to Gordon, this was actually a shrewd deal for the Mets.**
The money they saved by not paying Bonilla his $6 Million in 2000, went towards the contract of Mike Hampton, a 22 game winner for the Astros in 1999 who the Mets acquired for Roger Cedeno and Octavio Dotel. Hampton turned out to be an a$$hole, but he did win the NLCS MVP in 2000 and helped the Mets get to the World Series, where he and the rest of the team choked against the Yankees.
Hampton was a free agent and he signed with the Rockies, saying amongst other things, that Denver had a better school system than NY. Talking about public schools is a pretty stupid thing to do when you just signed an 8 year/$121 million contract. Like I said, total a-hole.
However with the compensatory pick the Mets got for losing Hampton, they drafted David Wright, arguably their greatest everyday homegrown player.
And as Gordon also points out Bonilla got a similar annual arrangement from the Orioles that has been paying him $500,000 a year (till 2023). A few people also pointed out this week that Bruce Sutter has been getting an annual payment from the Atlanta Braves that rivals the deal Bonilla has. Sutter hasn't pitched since 1986.
The reason that the Bonilla deal gets so much press, is that unlike the Braves, who are a) almost always in the hunt and b) are flush with cash, the Mets, when the payments to Bonilla started in 2011 were a) awful and b) more importantly FLAT BROKE. Because of what happened with Bernie Madoff, they barely had enough money to pay the players that were suiting up for them, never mind a has been like Bonilla who hadn't played for them in over 10 years at that point.
I was really hoping that when Steve Cohen took over the team, he would do us all a favor and just pay Bonilla the $29 million and be done with it. Instead, he's decided to make this a Mets promotion....
Which allows a fan to book an Airbnb stay for four at Citi Field for $250 that includes use of the team gym and shower and includes throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before the Mets play the Braves on July 28.
So thanks to the Wilpons, Bernie Madoff and quite frankly social media, we are stuck with Bobby Bonilla day till at least 2035.
Great
POLITICS: NYC Mayor's Race Fiasco
On Tuesday, the NYC Board of Elections released the preliminary results of this crazy ranked choice mayoral primary. Eric Adams led Katryn Garcia and Maya Wiley. All the others had been eliminated.
But later on that evening reports began to emerge about a voting discrepancy. Soon, it was reported that sample ballots had been counted as legitimate votes. In testing the voting software, these ballots were used and I guess they were never discarded. So 135,000 votes were counted that shouldn't have been.
Embarrassing.
And naturally, it led many Trmpsters to say "Hey, look! What did we tell you?"
By Wednesday, the 135,000 sample votes were taken away and the results were still the same, Adams led both Garcia and Wiley, pending the outcome of 124,000 absentee ballots that need to be counted.
So I think it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that heads have to roll here on the NYC Board of Elections. In a normal year, this would be unforgiveable. Now we are coming out of a pandemic that has us all on edge. Add to that, we have our idiot ex-President, still trying to convince people that he actually won a race that he got his ass handed to him in, and you have now handed him something he can use to justify his baseless claims. I've already seen it. Trumpster screaming "Hey if it can happen in NY, why couldn't it happen in Michigan or Gerogia or Arizona?"
Well, nobody's saying it couldn't happen, they are saying it didn't happen because well, it didn't happen! There were investigations, inquiries, lawsuits, etc. and they all came to the same conclusion.
I give the NYC Board of Elections credit..they found the error and fixed it and were transparent about it. But it doesn't change the fact that it happened and it created a huge mess.
Fasten your seatbelts NYC.
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I’m sorry I haven’t mentioned it before, mainly because it’s been a heartbreaking story, but what can you say about what happened to that apartment building in Surfside Florida? Just an absolute nightmare. Nobody really knows who’s fault it is, but I’m sure they’re going to find out because of course one thing that there’s never a shortage of is lawsuits. But now you just try to keep good thoughts for the victims and their families.
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To end this on a light note, I watched as much of the Nathan‘s Fourth of July hotdog eating contest as I could without tossing my cookies. At one point ESPN put up a graphic showing Joey Chestnut‘s 13 Nathan‘s hotdog eating titles, up against Bill Russell‘s 11 NBA championships, Henri Richard’s 11 Stanley Cups, Margaret Court’s 24 grand slam women’s tennis titles, and Rafael Nadal’s 20 grand slam men’s tennis titles. Interestingly enough they failed to mention Yogi Berra’s 10 World Series titles, which I personally took offense to. But not nearly as much offense as I took to the fact that America’s current greatest athlete, is a competitive eater.
Happy Birthday USA!
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
*Islander fans must be going bat$hit right now. If the Isles had managed to get just a pair of goals past Andre Vasilevskiy on June 25, we'd be getting ready for a parade down Hempstead Turnpike sometime next week.
**Gordon also talked to Cork Gaines of Business Insider who explained that if Bonilla had taken the $5.9 million in 2000 and invested it at 8% interest, he would have ended up with a little over $104 million by 2035. I'm not even going to pretend to act like I know how the hell that was figured out. If I were that smart, I wouldn't be blogging every Saturday afternoon. LOL
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