Mets to sign Bobby Bonilla at age 47 until 2035

How Bobby Bonilla Landed The Luckiest Baseball Contract Ever | Celebrity Net Worth

The Bernie Madoff Connection

In 1986, Real estate developer Fred Wilpon purchased 50% of The New York Mets for an undisclosed sum. He purchased the remaining 50% for $135 million in 2002. Wilpon was also one of the biggest investors in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme hedge fund. Prior to the fund's December 2008 collapse, Madoff was returning a consistent (and completely fake) double digit rate of return every year. With those returns in mind, Wilpon knew that The Mets would actually make a huge profit by deferring Bonilla's $5.9 million. Even though that meant agreeing to pay him more than five times the amount they owed ($29.8 million), Wilpon could safely estimate that the Mets would make $60-70 million off $5.9 million over those 25 years investing with Madoff.

Wilpon, who was under the false impression that he had made $300 million investing with Madoff, had potentially lost as much as $700 million. Not only did this completely invalidate the justification for Bobby Bonilla's contract but it almost forced Wilpon to sell The Mets to cover his debts. In 2011, Wilpon nearly sold 50% of The Mets to a billionaire hedge fund manager named David Einhorn, but was eventually saved by loans from Major League Baseball and Bank of America. Bobby Bonilla meanwhile is living the good life. In January of 2013 he received a direct deposit from The Mets for $1.192 million and in February he celebrated his 50th birthday.