As it turns out, the New York Mets weren't nearly as silly, inept and unaware as we thought they were. And because of that, they could get sued.
Which, when you think of it, is pretty damned Met.
According to court documents filed Monday by a court-appointed trustee involved in sorting out the spectacular Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff, the Wilpon family, which owns the Mets, didn't lose tons of money in the mega-swindle, forcing them to sell the team, but in fact made $48 million, forcing the people who want to reclaim some of their own actual losses to come to the Mets.
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| You could forgive Jeff Wilpon if he believes the sky is falling. (Getty Images) |
So on top of a horrific season in a new ballpark, Albatross Field, played against the backdrop of the Yankees kicking every piece of keister placed before them, with an enormous payroll that spent much of the year in civvies, the Mets now may owe a bunch of people they've never met the proceeds from a crime they didn't participate in.
In sum, if Fred Wilpon wants to pour an entire bottle of Tractor Shed Red over his oatmeal this morning, let him.
It's hard to view the Mets as victims, largely because they're so inherently bad at it. They aren't the Knicks, 'tis true, but they do walk with a certain unearned swagger that makes other people want to strike them with bags of gravel.
Thus, when their season went to hell, otherwise disinterested people approved. When it turned out the Madoff scheme had bitten a huge chunk out of the Wilpon fortune, people cheered. And now that it looks like they actually made money off Berniegate, the likelihood that they'll have to go to court to defend their relationship with one of the great financial criminals of all time will cheer people as well.
So a sensible person might ask Fred or Jeff Wilpon right about now, "Had any fun lately?" And the answer for that sensible person would be a quick sprint around the grounds while being chased by Rottweilers.
Ranking this Mets team among Mets teams is difficult only because the first three Mets teams were charmingly inept and so many others were just plain inept. But this one is hard not to beat, going top to bottom. To choose whether you are a dupe or an accessory is not much of a choice, and when you throw in the spectacular chemical fire that was the actual baseball, this one may have to rank among the bottom five. At least the first three Mets teams understood the value of comedy; this one isn't even a bit funny.
But it is a lot weird. Weirder in its way than these Knicks, less trustworthy than these Rangers, more baffling than these Jets. The only thing, in fact, New Yorkers know about these Mets is that they are less likely to move to another city than these Islanders.
So the new Madoff thing does fit the larger Met pattern, which is that even bit of good news is potentially bad news. True, it is better to be sued for $48 million than it is to lose $500 million, but knowing the Wilpons, they'd probably blow the other $452 million on the lawyers defending their right to keep the $48 million. It's called the Carlos Delgado Postulate, wherein one wildly overpays for something that made initial sense but eventually became a galactic money pit.
Meanwhile, the Yankees win every day. Man, does it suck hot tar to like the Mets these days -- so much so that sometimes you forget how much the Mets have all this coming, just on the karma alone.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
