A new era of Mets baseball is finally here.

So, let’s take one last look at the Wilpons, and say our formal goodbye, by sharing our worst Memories from the Wilpon era.

Bear with us as we air our grievances, prior to Festivus, and one last time.

Rich Sparago
It’s hard to have a worst memory from the Wilpon era, since there is quite a bit of material. I’ll go for something from the recent past-the way the back half of the 2018 season was handled. Sandy Alderson had a recurrence. of cancer, and needed to leave his position as General Manager. The organization seemed a bit insensitive about Alderson’s health, then proceeded to operate without a GM for the rest of the season. They used the “three-headed monster” approach, with John Ricco, J.P. Riccardi, and Omar Minaya. This was just before the trading deadline, so who was making the decisions? No one seemed to know. Add to this the Yoenis Cespedes situation, where he came back for one game before requiring heel surgery. Mickey Callaway was forced to take questions on this, something a field manager should never have to do. Senior leaders, such as the GM, should handle matters such as the long-term health of star players. Rather, the Mets hung Callaway out to dry on the matter, and it showed. All of that reflected badly on the organization-and that was my primary problem with the Wilpon era. All organizations make poor player decisions, it happens. However, there’s no excuse for an organization to seem unprofessional, and unorganized. That was the case all to often during the Wilpon era. While I’m looking forward to the Steve Cohen Mets because they should be better on the field, having a leadership team in place that reflects competence will be a refreshing change.

Ryan Finkelstein
It’s hard to choose a worst memory from the Wilpon era when there has been so many, but I’m going to go with something that occurred just this past January. Prior to the start of spring training, the Mets announced that they would change the street address of their facility in Port St. Lucie to honor Hall of Famer Mike Piazza.

A ceremony was held on January 16, 2020, to unveil the new address of 31 Piazza Drive. Piazza and his wife flew in all the way from Italy just to be met with the type of sideshow that was typical of the Wilpon era. After sending mixed messages and dragging their feet in response to the sign-stealing scandal which involved new manager Carlos Beltran, Jeff Wilpon and Piazza faced the media, where they were peppered with questions about Beltran.

After ruining Piazza’s ceremony by refusing to comment on Beltran, Wilpon promptly sent out a press release announcing the firing of their manager. Wilpon and Brodie Van Wagenen spoke with the media in a conference call later that afternoon. If they simply sent out the press release in the morning and announced that they would speak about Beltran later in the day, Piazza could have celebrated his moment freely.

Jack Hendon
I tend not to think of the Wilpon regime in terms of moments – simply patterns and eras that came and went with a number of bad decisions bookmarked along the way. Ultimately though there were a few constant themes that defined their 18 years in charge: a lot of meddling, but also some appalling displays of apathy that nobody who owns and roots for their team should conceivably get away with.

Here, the shining failure is their inability/borderline refusal to erect a statue for Tom Seaver. The best player in franchise history, and probably the player who most enjoyed being a Met of anybody to ever wear the orange and blue, Seaver didn’t get the recognition he deserved while Shea Stadium was still in the equation. Once the ownership group came out with a new stadium – a billion-dollar brainchild – they put every dollar in the budget into paying homage to the Brooklyn Dodgers. There was very little acknowledgment of the franchise’s nearly-50-year history at that point, and literally nothing to honor the player responsible for most of its history. Not until Seaver had been diagnosed with dementia did the Mets even announce their plans to eventually construct a statue in 2019. He passed away before anybody could see it unveiled. Why they never thought to pay the most basic respects across 18 years is beyond me, but it’s in many ways emblematic of their stay here. A lot of moments where you’d imagine they would care more about giving the team a name, but saw absolutely no attempt to convince you they did. Not even incompetent. Not even a moment. Just a gutless waste of time in the face of something millions of people cared about.

Dilip Sridhar
The worst Wilpon moment for me was hiring Brodie Van Wagenen to be Jeff Wilpon’s glorified intern. This basically summed up the entire Wilpon way, in my opinion. The Mets were forced to have Sandy Alderson be their chaperone after the Bernie Madoff mess. In a way it was a huge blessing because it forced the Mets to have an actual adult in the room. The result was a 2015 pennant. But after Sandy got sick, less and less was seen of him and there were clear signs that the Wilpons were allowed to do anything in the organization. For example, teams like the Yankees and Dodgers were hiring young executives or former GMs who were actually good at their jobs and were seen as GM candidates down the line. Who did the Mets hire? Omar Minaya, a familiar face who was nice to them in the media but someone who never came close to getting another GM job. There were rumblings that Sandy wanted to get Ben Cherington in that role but he was shot down by the Wilpons. Sandy was forced to step down because of cancer so the Wilpons got to hire a GM on their own terms. Did they get the Ivy Leaguer who was a candidate for other positions in baseball and the architect of the Rays? No, they hired the guy with no front office experience and the guy no other team even considered. He was a glorified used car salesman and the current state of the Mets show it. This guy had no idea what he was doing and had no way of stopping Jeff Wilpon. Now Sandy, Steve Cohen, and the new army of baseball ops will be in charge of cleaning up the mess left behind by Brodie and co.

Michelle Ioannou
There are just too many to name. For me, I’ll generalize it by having my worst memory being the blatant not caring about the Mets fans (and arguably even players) and solely caring about money. I am very excited to finally have an owner who not only isn’t going to be cheap, but genuinely wants this team to win, as he’s a Mets fan himself.