QUEENS, NY (SNN-TV) – One of Major League Baseball’s biggest errors didn’t happen on the diamond and former star Bobby Bonilla has been laughing all the way to the bank because of it.
It’s July 1st, and Bonilla is getting his annual paycheck from the New York Mets. This despite his retirement from the game in 2001. In 1999, the Mets wanted to get rid of the former slugger but the team still owed him $6M.
Fred Wilpon, the Mets’ owner at the time, didn’t want to hand over the remainder of the money outright so Bonilla’s agent made a deal that deferred the payments until 2011 with an 8% yearly interest rate, which ballooned the $6M to a $30M payout.
Long story short: Bonilla has been collecting a $1.2M check every July 1st since then and it will continue until 2035, when he’ll be 72-years-old. This has led the baseball world to refer to this date as “Bobby Bonilla Day.”
Wilpon was one of the many investors who fell victim to the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme. Madoff was handed a 150-year prison sentence.
