The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin takes readers behind the scenes of the troubled New York Mets, and the impact of the Bernie Madoff investment scandal in a story titled "Madoff's Curveball" in the May 30 edition.
Fred should have had some media folks deliver his messages better, but Wilpon believes he is bullet proof, and he ain't.
So, Jeff Toobin, known for his legal analysis, detailed the long-time relationship between Mets CEO Fred Wilpon, Madoff and their families and analyzes the impact of bankruptcy trustee Irving Picard's quest to target the Mets in salvaging assets in behalf of Madoff victims.
As compelling as the Madoff-Wilpon tale may be -- and the outlook does not appear rosy for Wilpon -- of at least equal interest to Mets fans might be Wilpon's take on several of his current players. Toobin quotes Wilpon regarding:
This is more the baseball side of his escapades ( have not heard these style rippings sinced Boss George was Cheif Poobah for the Yankees )
•Shortstop Jose Reyes and his contractual future: "He thinks he's going to get Carl Crawford ($142 million) money. .. He's had everything wrong with him physically). He won't get it."
•David Wright and his rough start this season:"He's pressing. … A really good kid. A very good player. Not a superstar."
•Carlos Beltran and the current $119 million contract Wilpon, himself, handed out: "We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on one (postseason) series. ... He's 65 to 75 % of what he was."
Toobin then pressed Wilpon on the ownership issues:
Oh Jesus H Christ, and nobody decided from the Mets to pull the plug, they just kept snickering, and kept the tape rolling. I was waiting for the Johan Santana is dogging his rehab statement next, or Gary Carter is
faking brain cancer for attention. But there is still time, and thankfully the NY media have this guy by the short hairs.
"Wilpon can press his lawyers to fight on against Picard, but the owner's risks far outweigh the trustee's. For Wilpon, the imposition of a billion-dollar court judgment would be cataclysmic, and would certainly require the outright sale of the Mets; for Picard, a loss to Wilpon would be little more than an embarrassment. Some kind of settlement seems likely, if not inevitable. In the meantime, Wilpon can do little but stew, defend his reputation, and brace himself for another long season at Citi Field."
Toobin, who communicated with Madoff in prison and via email, terms Madoff as "contrite" when it come to Wilpon and the woes he may have brought upon him. Madoff tells Toobin:
"I don't think Fred could be a nicer guy than he is. Family man, very straightforward and honest, he obviously loves baseball and loves the team. And it's really tragic, and I feel terrible about everything that he's going through. I don't know anybody who doesn't have good things to say about him. … He must feel that I betrayed him, as do most of my friends who were involved. Hopefully, they will understand the pressures I was under. I made money for them legitimately to start, but then I got trapped and was not able to work my way out of it. It just became impossible for me to extricate myself, or even try and extricate myself."
"(Toobin's sources describe Wilpon (who owns the Mets along with his son, CEO Jeff Wilpon, and brother-in-law Saul Katz) as immersed in the intricacies of his team and Citi Field -- but also a "nice guy," "too trusting" and "a gentleman." Sources, as well as Wilpon himself, say he was an unwitting victim, hardly a conspirator in Madoff's Ponzi scheme. These guys are more Potsie's than Ponzi's in my book.
"We certainly wouldn't have had $550 million invested in something that's a Ponzi scheme, when you know it can only evaporate at some point," Wilpon tells Toobin. "We didn't know. In fact, Toobin says Wilpon's Sterling Equities invested a million dollars with Madoff on the day of his arrest.
Toobin quotes from a Madoff email in which Madoff writes: "Fred and Saul were only guilty of trusting their friend and I will live with that guilt and shame forever."
And of course greed trumps brains always.....
One other sidelight with a baseball twist comes from Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, a schoolboy friend of Wilpon from their Brooklyn days, who invested with Madoff at Wilpon's suggestion. Koufax says:
"I don't believe (Wilpon) would ever do anything unethical. I don't believe he would have allowed me to put what limited money I had into something that was illegitimate."
Sandy is decent guy, but was a Madoff victim himself, so self preservation here by Koufax
It's at this pint when Mets fans, are praying for the Rapture, again disapointed Wilpon is still there, well of course he is, this moron is not going to heaven, he has other reservations made.
Mets fans are now setting their sights on October, the newly conceived timing for leaving your bills, and your favourite team behind.
The owner is completely off his rocker, and the exodus ( Reyes, and others ) will be biblical.
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