Under normal circumstances, Tuesday’s Grapefruit League performances by Andres Torres and Johan Santana would provide a genuine glimmer of hope to the breed of masochists who call ourselves Mets fans. However, in the wake of yesterday’s court ruling that principal owner Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz must pay at least $83 million to victims of Bernie Madoff (a sum that might only increase following a pending trial), ESPN.com’s Buster Olney suggests Wilpon’s ill-advised attempts to hang on at all costs are best compared to those of the late Joe Paterno (if we’re looking for football analogies, I’d have picked Fran Tarkenton). Leave it to Metsradamus, however, to find some potential silver lining in this atrocity exhibition.
It’s good news to hear that a U.S. District Judge has ruled that the Picard vs. Wilpons suit will go on as planned, and that the first family of tone deaf has to pay out those $83 million in ficticious profits. Now that alone wouldn’t be the best news, as $83 million is just enough to doom the Mets to financial irrelevancy over the next couple of years, yet not enough to give Bud Selig the ample reason he needs to force these clowns out of business. But there’s a chance now that the Wilpons have to pay out a whole lot more money at the end of this trial, which would probably be the death blow.