On Thursday night, NBA players from DeMar DeRozan to Timofey Mozgov saw enormous paydays—$139 million and $60 million, respectively—under confusing new salary-cap rules. Dudes are getting paid.
Which brings us to baseball. The last couple seasons have featured talented New York Mets teams that are actually competitive. It's pretty remarkable to think about that when you consider the fact that the Mets have been so garbage for so long that "LOLMets" was a near-constant refrain on Twitter. Well, in one amazing way, no matter how good they get, they will remain the LOLMets until at least 2035. Today marks the funniest day of the sports year, as it's the day when Bobby Bonilla, a 53-year-old man who hasn't played professional baseball in 15 years, and hasn't played for the Mets in 17 years, will be paid $1,193,248.20 dollars by the New York Mets.
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The story goes that Bonilla was coming up on the last year of his contract, which would have paid him $5.9 million for the 2000 season. The Mets decided to buy Bonilla out of that contract to free up some money to improve the team immediately. The deal was that Bonilla wouldn't receive any money right away, but that from 2011to 2035 every year on July 1 Bonilla would get paid almost $1.2 million. Now, on the pro side, the Mets did make it to the World Series in 2000. But looking at the cons, they will end up paying Bonilla $29.8 million for that season when all is said and done.
So every July 1, let's raise a glass to Bobby Bonilla and his agent for making one of the greatest deals anyone has ever made in the history of sports. And no matter how good the Mets get, let us never forget this one gloriously stupid moment. It's just so beautifully dumb that I don't think it's possible to love it more.