Baseball Gave Mets Secret $25 Million Loan

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• 86mets February 26, 2011 at 10:20 am

  What more proof is needed that the Wilpons should sell this team to someone more competent? New York franchises should NOT need to borrow money from MLB, EVER, so long as it is run with a shred of competency. Which quite obviously the Mets have NOT. If I were the Royals or Brewers or Pirates I’d be upset too that MLB is loaning cash to a New York team carrying a $140 million payroll. I don’t care how good of friends Bud Selig is with Fred Wilpon, for the good of the game and the Mets he needs to convince Wilpon to sell. I don’t know if Selig’s position has the authority to do such a thing, but clearly the Mets and the game would be better off with new ownership.
• francis February 26, 2011 at 10:27 am

  god i hope they can’t pay it back and are forced out already.

  what an embarrassment.
• Clayton Collier February 26, 2011 at 11:49 am

  Take Me out to the ball game ($120 dollars in tickets)
  Take me out to the crowd (parking $8 bucks)
  Buy me some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks($6 bucks per bag)

  first three lines of the song and your already out $140 bucks before the games even started!
  • Joe D February 26, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    lol, thanks for the sobering reminder.
    • Clayton Collier February 27, 2011 at 1:37 am

      Haha No problem. I bet if I kept going I could think of some more charges.

      I Dont care if I never get back (Hotel $150 a night)
      For its root, root root for the home team (foam finger $10)
      If they don’t win its a shame ($20 in lost bet)
      For its 1-2-3 strikes your out(of money)
      at the old ball game!
  • francis February 26, 2011 at 12:34 pm

    and don’t forget that your $$$ go right into the pockets of the wilpon’s lawyers.

    hurl
• tuck212 February 26, 2011 at 5:10 pm

  when will the embarrassment end? no team in NYC should be in a position like this. it pains me that my son has to root for a team that is run by such an utterly incompetent bunch of fools. when will it end? wilpons: please sell and leave now!
• Rich O'Reilly February 26, 2011 at 5:41 pm

  I wonder when the Wilpon’s will be having their garage sale…..
• andy February 26, 2011 at 9:59 pm

  the late night laughs just keep on coming with this franchise under wilpon
  • baby al February 27, 2011 at 1:53 am

    methinks freddye wilponzie is wearing on peoples nerves…and the wilponzie lies keep coming via the daily news.perhaps freddye is using some of seligs monies to pay the news reporters he has on his sny payroll!keep the lies coming alderson you will fall like every other wilponzie boot licking gm.
• Annie Savoy February 27, 2011 at 8:04 am

  This story is leaking out slowly like a sponge, drip, drip. What a different side of the Wilpons it is showing to the world now. Too bad that MLB won’t step up and make some decisions, but with Bud Selig being such a ‘buddy’ to Fred he has shown the underside of MLB, too.
  • baby al February 27, 2011 at 10:30 pm

    the wilpons had this side 4 ever. some people refused to see it.as far as selig goes he turned his head when steroids ravaged our national game.as did our genius gm (ALDERSON).the bottom line is if freddye wilponzie lost annie savoy he has lost the trust of his fan base.welcome to the real world annie savoy.i knew eventually the wilpon mob would hit u between the eyes with a dose of reality.
    • Annie Savoy February 28, 2011 at 7:17 am

      baby al – Yes, he has lost me but I haven’t written about when. He lost me when he removed Willie Randolph from the team in such a sleazy way – remember? In the middle of the night in California? That was when I realized that Fred Wilpon was not a true sports owner.
      • Des February 28, 2011 at 9:01 am

        Yeah, Annie, most of us remember it. It was a sleazy job orchestrated by Omar and Tony Bernazard. Willie has a job now, but do Omar and Tony? Sometimes what goes around comes around.
        • baby al February 28, 2011 at 6:36 pm

          des ,with all due respect ,annie is correct sleazy=freddye wilpon.every move made by every met gm is run past freddye wilpon first.thats why ollie perez is still on this team.last week didn’t wilponzie say he wants to give minaya a job in talent evaluation?lets see perez,putz,castillo,k rod…yes omar can evaluate talent!freddye wants to give omar a job because omar is enjoying europe on freddyes dime. like i have been saying if freddye PAYS YA HE PLAYS YA.the funny thing is if ollie does get cut the next thing u will hear is freddye saying in the ny daily news that this shows how money has nothing to do with baseball moves.your a year late wilponzie if u do cut ollie which still remains to be seen!MINAYA HAS MORE CLASS IN HIS LITTLE FINGER THAN THE ENIRE HONORABLE WILPON FAMILY HAVE PERIOD!the willie firing as wilpon all the way.
          • t agee February 28, 2011 at 7:04 pm

            The timing of the Willie firing was really a low class move too and I’m not talking about doing it in LA at 3:00 am EST. I’m talking about doing it a week or two before the All Star Game in Yankee Stadium where Willie had been named by La Russa as one of the NL Coaches. Pure spite. And your right about the Wilpon hating to get rid of people still owed money. Managers, GM’s, useless performers and that’s not all, just look at all the late season salary dumps that bring back nothing in on field value. The Wagner trade was a classic example. 2M in salary relief, 1.5 M in the buyout, 3 M in signing bonuses to the two prospects we could have drafted instead of Boston.

            Sure 6M added back onto the bottom line but at the cost of the 19th and 39th picks in the first round which Boston turned into a VERY highly regarded starting pitcher Anthony Ranuado currently considered to be the 67th best prospect in baseball and Kolbin Vitek the Sox’s #9th rated prospect a second basemen.

            There have been many salary dump trades down the stretch through the Wilpon years. From Rojas to Francouer the only consideration is cash, not getting a useable player.
            • baby al February 28, 2011 at 9:10 pm

              on the money 100%.
• theonlymaskman February 27, 2011 at 8:29 am

  This revelation shows the extent of just how bad a situation this is. The Wilpons have gotten themselves overextended and have to stoop to begging for help. It is obvious that they have mismanaged their finances and endangered the entire organization with their financial recklessness. It has been said that FW is a skillful and talented businessman. We see what a joke that is. He apparently has placed the organization in the position of not having cash reserves to tide over through a tight spot and has no credit line to draw upon. He had to humble himself to ask for a loan from MLB to continue as a going concern. I would like to see the annual report, especially the audit statement regarding continuation as a going concern. They had better forget about seeking a minority partner because you would have to be a complete fool to partner with them under such circumstances. This team must be sold in entirety and the sooner the better.
  • any February 27, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    Certainly they borrowed a lot of money to get SNY off the ground, and Citi field built. Most teams do in order to get stuff like this done.

    The killer (leading to the need for the loan) was the double whammy of having a chunk of your assets (that you expected to be able to use if needed) just vaporize.

    but beyond that, what really killed them was attendance tanking. obviously they made a budget assuming that the first couple of years at Citi would be high attendance ones. When that didn’t happen, boom, a cash flow crisis. That is probably what caused the need for the 25mill loan.

    Assume they sold 500K fewer tickets last year than they budgeted for. At $50 average profit (ticket, food, parking), that right there is $25mill that they never had.

    and that is why they are so worried about 2011. Not because they expect to pay anything in the lawsuit.
• Marla Hooch February 27, 2011 at 9:03 am

  Well the Rangers borrowed $40M last year and they made it to the dance

  This is certainly yet another unfortunate distraction for the team, and maybe I’m in the miniorty, but all this crap going on with the Owners will NOT keep me away from going to the game.

  I go to the game for my enjoyment, not for the Wilpons

  I go to the game to watch the guys between the white lines, and frankly, I like the majority of this team thusfar.
  • baby al February 27, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    as the wilponzie mob dumps salaries this summer the players between the white lines will dwindle as should your loyalty to them.sadly, we cannot seperate the money from the game itself.the wilponzie mob will make sure of that through their actions. freddye wilponzies lying flunkies,whether in the front office or on the ny daily news,will eventually be exposed for the yes men boot lickers they are.the end game will be the wilponzie mobs loss of the team…which would be a win win for true fans!long live irving picard my hero.
• XtreemIcon February 27, 2011 at 8:26 pm

  I had the opportunity to speak to Bob DuPuy a year or so ago when the big news was the new ballpark in Miami and how much pushback the Marlins were receiving from city officials. I asked him directly whether or not there was a policy in place from MLB to assist teams that receive the kind of resistance from an outside organization the Marlins were recieving and he said there was a policy to help when outside factors threaten to influence the team’s baseball operations, but the type and amount of aid is on a case by case basis.

  So this is nothing new, and not very surprising or telling of anything.