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"Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

batmagadanleadoff Apr 29 2021 01:09 PM

Madoff Nearly Ruined the Mets. The Team Has Moved On. The death of the infamous investment banker who was serving a 150-year prison sentence recalls a chapter where a major-market team was forced to scramble to survive. Excerpt: There was a high-flying, if brief, period in Mets history when virtually every available dollar was cycled through investment accounts managed by Bernard L. Madoff. If the team signed a deal for radio rights, the station was asked for much of the money up front and it was handed over to Madoff, who made it multiply, seemingly without fail. If the Mets received a chunk of advertising cash from Pepsi or Budweiser, they would funnel that into the Madoff accounts, too. And when it came time to buy out Bobby Bonilla's player contract, they created an annuity, invested the immediate savings into a Madoff account, and expected to make millions on the transaction for both parties. “Put it in Bernie,” was how Saul Katz, the former president of the team, used to phrase it to colleagues in an indication of how intertwined the team's finances were with Madoff, who it was later discovered was running the largest Ponzi scheme in history. [***] [A]t the height of it, [Fred] Wilpon told a reporter at spring training in Port St. Lucie, Fla., “At least no one is sick.” Indeed, the owners survived the worst of it, mostly through the natural appreciation of major sports franchises. But it did not help that the team was terrible, failing to reach the .500 mark for the next six years. [FIMG=555]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/04/14/sports/14mlb-madoff-mets/merlin_31527936_340dc1d1-4bc5-43d7-97c9-2c39d47e3b21-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp[/FIMG] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/sports/baseball/bernie-madoff-mets.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Ceetar Apr 29 2021 01:15 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

no way the Mets didn't benefit from that for years/decades. If they'd pulled it out in '06-'08, or even in '00 maybe, you'd kind of forgive '10-'13.

batmagadanleadoff Apr 29 2021 01:25 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

=Ceetar post_id=62496 time=1619723745 user_id=102] no way the Mets didn't benefit from that for years/decades. If they'd pulled it out in '06-'08, or even in '00 maybe, you'd kind of forgive '10-'13.

Definitely. For starters, the Wilpons were able to buy out Doubleday based on financial documents that everyone now knows were inflated and fraudulent because they relied heavily on Madoff's phony numbers. And after the scandal broke, the Wilpons were able to hang on to their team mainly because of their cozy relationship with Bud Selig, who looked the other way for the Mets and told openly blatant lies about the Mets financial situation to give the Wilpons even more cover, while forcing McCourt to sell his Dodgers for far less transgressions. The Mets were worth half a billion dollars ten years ago. Steve Cohen bought the Mets for about $2.4 billion.

batmagadanleadoff Apr 29 2021 01:31 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=62499 time=1619724336 user_id=68] =Ceetar post_id=62496 time=1619723745 user_id=102] no way the Mets didn't benefit from that for years/decades. If they'd pulled it out in '06-'08, or even in '00 maybe, you'd kind of forgive '10-'13.

Definitely. For starters, the Wilpons were able to buy out Doubleday based on financial documents that everyone now knows were inflated and fraudulent because they relied heavily on Madoff's phony numbers. And after the scandal broke, the Wilpons were able to hang on to their team mainly because of their cozy relationship with Bud Selig, who looked the other way for the Mets and told openly blatant lies about the Mets financial situation to give the Wilpons even more cover, while forcing McCourt to sell his Dodgers for far less transgressions. The Mets were worth half a billion dollars ten years ago. Steve Cohen bought the Mets for about $2.4 billion.


Oh, great I see that kc is logged in. So my kc disclosure is that everything I wrote about in the post just above I know from years of following the Mets and the news. I can't say that Fred and Saul and Irving Picard called me personally to give me first-hand accounts of the Mets-Madoff situation.



I wonder if kc's gonna now google Esquire magazine to see if they ever published any articles on the Mets and Madoff so he can accuse me of reading more news to get my news info.

batmagadanleadoff Apr 29 2021 01:41 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

Edgy MD wrote: Stop trolling, please. The day you ever take my side on this crap will be a record setter. Monkeys will fly out my ass. Where were you when he started?

kcmets Apr 29 2021 01:58 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

I have a copy of Wilpon's Folly by Howard Megdal, never got around to reading it. Next on my to do list.

MFS62 Apr 29 2021 02:23 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

Megdal lived off the Madoff story for years. And we thought it had ben put to bed. But this story: (in the words of the Director of IT at Unilever) Why? Why this? Why this now? I admit the link is pay-walled, so I didn't read it. But does the article answer those basic questions? How? Later

G-Fafif Apr 29 2021 02:40 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

This ran shortly after Madoff's death.

Edgy MD Apr 29 2021 03:43 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

Edgy MD wrote: Stop trolling, please. The day you ever take my side on this crap will be a record setter. Monkeys will fly out my ass. Where were you when he started? I'm everywhere and nowhere. You should reach out to KC and offer to take him out for a beer. You'll be glad you did.

Frayed Knot Apr 29 2021 03:47 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

There actually is a brand new book out on Madoff -- MADOFF TALKS by Jim Campbell -- but I don't think it's going to have much NYM-specific content in it. After Madoff went away he began a correspondence with Campbell, a journalist he never met, and wrote often and lengthy letters and emails even as he was barely, or not at all, in contact with his own family. He apparently doesn't deny anything but spends a lot of time egotistically rationalizing what he did as if to show how none of it were his fault - sounding somewhat like a cross between the worst characteristics of Nixon and Trump. Campbell also talked extensively with Ruth Madoff and at least one of the sons before he died. Not sure it's one that I'm going to get around to.

Ceetar Apr 29 2021 04:36 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=62499 time=1619724336 user_id=68] =Ceetar post_id=62496 time=1619723745 user_id=102] no way the Mets didn't benefit from that for years/decades. If they'd pulled it out in '06-'08, or even in '00 maybe, you'd kind of forgive '10-'13.

Definitely. For starters, the Wilpons were able to buy out Doubleday based on financial documents that everyone now knows were inflated and fraudulent because they relied heavily on Madoff's phony numbers. And after the scandal broke, the Wilpons were able to hang on to their team mainly because of their cozy relationship with Bud Selig, who looked the other way for the Mets and told openly blatant lies about the Mets financial situation to give the Wilpons even more cover, while forcing McCourt to sell his Dodgers for far less transgressions. The Mets were worth half a billion dollars ten years ago. Steve Cohen bought the Mets for about $2.4 billion.


depends on what you classify as 'inflated and fraudulent'. They WERE in fact, getting those returns and had the records to show for it. That'll fly pretty much everywhere until it doesn't. (our current owner has had similar ..uh..brushes, with the rules, he just had more than one, and also didn't have his money frozen in a lawsuit) McCourt's failed to pay bills, Wilpons never really reached that point. And again, frozen assets that would unfreeze, McCourt was only going to lose more.



It's mostly just semantics, but I always think of Madoff as an example of the Wilpons being bad people, not inept people. And then they climbed out of it by having played nice with Selig, the league, and selling novelty shares of the team, mostly to themselves. There are other stories for their ineptitude.



And that's without getting into whether the Wilpons were fully or partially complicit in the whole thing, and from what point.

kcmets Apr 29 2021 04:48 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 29 2021 04:49 PM

I've often thought the Wiilpons knew Bernie was a a crook. Just commenting on the complicity slant.

Centerfield Apr 29 2021 04:48 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

Without the Madoff returns maybe Fred never gets full control of the team. But without the Madoff collapse maybe he doesn't have to sell completely. Either way, I'm glad the Wilpons are gone while I'm still somewhat young.

Centerfield Apr 29 2021 04:48 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

=kcmets post_id=62519 time=1619736482 user_id=53] I've often thought the Wiilpons knew Bernie was a a crook. Just commenting on the complicity slant.

Yup.

Ceetar Apr 29 2021 06:15 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

=kcmets post_id=62519 time=1619736482 user_id=53] I've often thought the Wiilpons knew Bernie was a a crook. Just commenting on the complicity slant.

they're all crooks. Almost definitely knew he was being shady, but probably figured it was like, Steve Cohen shady, not Ponzi scheme shady.

Frayed Knot Apr 29 2021 06:34 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

The Wilpons -- Fred, Jeff, Saul, team accounts, personal accounts, etc -- lost a LOT of money via Madoff. Madoff was taking people's money and giving them entirely fictional statements detailing that he was investing it in various blue-chip companies when in fact he didn't invest a dime of it, he was using it all to finance his own personal lifestyle. What would be the point in the 'Pons, or anyone else for that matter, continually giving him more if they knew that this was the case? And the money they did withdraw at various times from their "accounts" based on those fictional gains is what the court-appointed arbiter was later sent to claw back meaning that they had to pay back part of what they gained years earlier on top of their money which simply disappeared. The combination of the two is what put them in a hole which caused the slicing of payroll nearly in half and from which they could never recover without selling the team, something they swore they had no intention of doing until then. Were they naive? Sure. Wroing to put all the eggs in one basket? In hindsight, yeah. Were there signs that they should have known better? I'll buy that. But I can't fathom this idea that they knew he was a phony and just kept forking over money to him anyway on the off chance that he'd get away with it forever. That doesn't make a lick of sense.

kcmets Apr 29 2021 06:48 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

Solid take FK, but I'd still be surprised they didn't half-know or a quarter-know the books were cooked.

Fman99 Apr 29 2021 07:32 PM Re: "Put it in Bernie": Remembering Bernie Madoff

They're all crooks and scoundrels.