This week was July 1st and the most important holiday of the month- Bobby Bonilla Day.

What? You’ve never heard of Bobby Bonilla Day?

It’s a magical day full of bad financial decisions and bad baseball decisions celebrated every July 1st from 2011 until 2035.

Who is Bobby Bonilla?

Bobby Bonilla is a baseball player. In 1992 he signed a contract with the New York Mets for 5 years and $29 million dollars (this was a lot back then, lol). The previous two years he had finished 2nd and 3rd in the National League MVP voting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. This was a huge signing and a signal that the Mets were ready to return to the top of the National League.

Spoiler alert for non-Mets’ fans: they were not ready to return to the top of the national league. Midway through his fourth season he was traded to the Orioles.

Never one to learn their lesson, the Mets traded for Bonilla in 1999, getting him from the Dodgers, the sixth of eight teams he would eventually play for over his career.

Now, I’m going to need you to sit down for this one, but in 1999 Bobby Bonilla was not very good for the Mets. He was so bad, in fact, that ownership wanted to pay him the $5.9 million he was owed on his contract to just be done with him.

Except, hold on, the owners of the New York Mets had a financial advisor who could get them a 12% return on their investment. What if, instead of giving Bobby Bonilla $5.9 million they invested that money, getting a 12% return

For 10 years.

Then in 2011 they could start paying Bonilla the money they owed him, with a piddling 8% in interest taxed on.

I know you’re probably not some big time, wealthy baseball team owner but that gap between the 12% they’re earning and the 8% they’re paying is called ‘profit’.

So starting in 2011 and running to 2035 the Mets would pay Bonilla $1,193,248.20 a year on July 1st but it isn’t a big deal because their financial advisor was going to make them so much more with that initial $5.9 million dollar investment.

Oh yeah, last part of the story.

Their financial advisor was Bernie Madoff.

So, yes, they were not going to be getting a 12% yearly return on the investment.

I don’t know if they asked Bobby Bonilla to change this deferred payment deal, but I’m glad Bobby didn’t. This is a victory for the union worker (at least the one union worker) while the greedy millionaire takes it in the pants.

Just for an idea of how much that is compared to today’s salaries… Bonilla currently makes about $400,000 more per year than Jacob Misiorowski, a name familiar to baseball fans and long time readers of this column.

The contract is a team obligation so when the team gets sold the new owner not only gets to own the New York Mets (Hooray?) they also pick up the rest of the tab for future Bobby Bonilla days. Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen purchased the team for $2.4 billion in 2020, I’m sure he’ll manage.

Also, I was in college when the Mets originally signed Bonilla in 1992. I’ll be retirement age when the last payment is finally made.

Anyway here is what you missed this week… I didn’t post anything this week and I apologize to my loyal readers, but also, I’m sure we’ll all survive. I did have a new micro fiction contest that I submitted to, so I wasn’t doing anything.

I also received a rejection letter for a piece that I was really proud of and was hoping to get published. The feedback I received let me know I was right to be proud of it and now, I just need to decide how much I want to change it.

The main criticism of the piece was the ending, I went with a life-goes-on ending and the editor wanted a ‘something happens’ ending. Knowing me, I’m going to stick to my guns (if you know any publications looking for Midwest/rural stories send them my way), but I’ve also grown enough to reread and consider alternate ways to tie everything up.

Okay, the Brewers are currently playing their seventh game since the last update and are losing, with Miz pitching. I’m not sure if my psyche can handle this. (Update- they lost, I’m fine).

However, before today they went, you guessed it, 4-2 for the week and continued on their path towards having the best record in team history for the second year in the row. There are no days off until the all-star break on the 13th and next week they play five games in four days against the Cardinals in St. Louis. I’ll definitely have a better idea of how I feel about this season in two weeks.

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