So what have I been doing lately to keep my attention? I’ve been doing a little wagering. I love to gamble on the NFL and do it in all kinds of crazy ways, but baseball never really interested me. I started to work with a new guy and he’s crazy about betting the MLB. After hearing about how he does it and realizing it’s really not that complicated as long as you follow baseball I decided to give it a shot. If your interested here is the site I use, it has a comprehensive list of all the MLB Odds. It’s been super easy to use.

Let me tell you, the other night when Daniel Murphy launched that homer in the 8th inning of that game against the Nationals I went nuts. I’d normally go nuts anyways, but with some bills on the line too I was ecstatic. I probably haven’t felt like that since 2006. Totally ridiculous I know but hey, it’s what I do, haha.

Anyways thanks for hanging with us, we are still here, we still love our Mets baseball, and Lets Go Mets!

Amazon: Amazin’ Avenue Annual 2011: New York Mets Preview
Official Site: Amazin Avenue Annual
Amazin Avenue: Check out the blog

I placed my order for mine today, and am looking forward to checking it out. I post a review of it once I get a chance to sit down with it in a week or two.

My only question is how can a dude get to be a a part of this? It’s a goal for 2011!

How can we expect the team to put it behind then, how can we create a new “culture” and chart a new direction for the franchise if we as fans and bloggers constantly harp on the negative. I’m a married man, and I am far from perfect, and if my wife continually harped on all the stupid stuff I’ve have done in the past, the future wouldn’t be a happy one. Instead you learn from the little issues and create a great future together. Much can be the same with the Mets. Lets hope that the Mets can learn from the past and use it as motivation. A new page is being written now with the new front office, a transition that I love and have high hopes for in the long run.

As a website I want to start to focus our attention on the field. As fascinated as I am with the entire Madoff story, it really wont have any(more) effect on this current team so I will try to put that to the back burner. It’s a huge story, and one I will personally follow closely, but I will promise to not let it effect the day-to-day operations of the team … blog.

Lets have fun and watch some baseball. It’s a great time of year. Take realistic expectations and try to find storylines you want to follow closely this season. For me I am really anxious to see what Thole and Davis can do in Year 2. I am a youth/prospect guy so I love to watch players develop. Find the little niches that will interest you day to day, I find it helps a lot and can draw you into the team even more.

Spring training 2011 is upon us, so let’s play ball.

From ESPN-NY:

When Fred Wilpon and family bought out Nelson Doubleday’s half of Mets ownership in 2002, Wilpon offered Bernard Madoff a chance to buy into the Mets. Madoff, who otherwise invested $12 million in alleged funny money with Sterling businesses, declined.

Here’s the exact passage in the lawsuit:

The only time Sterling offered Madoff an opportunity to invest that he declined was in the Mets, when in 2002, Doubleday sold its 50% ownership of the Mets and Sterling offered Madoff partial ownership interests in the franchise.

Regardless of what happens with this lawsuit, I think the Wilpons will be forced to sell the team. When you consider what they have already lost, it’s a miracle they still have ownership. They ran the Mets with a lot of help from Madoff, and when Madoff was arrested and his scheme came crumbling down it left the Wilpons in a big crisis. So reliant on the Madoff money for their business deals they were forced to quickly re-organize their debt. Couple on top of that the fact that they thought they had another $500 million that they instantly did not have, and you see Sterling Equities in dire straits. This is saying nothing of a horrendous commercial real estate market for the last few years. It’s apparent the Wilpons by-and-large are hurting. If they weren’t why would they already be selling a 25% stake of the team?

With the Wilpons hurting, so are the Mets. The Wilpons have no cash to pump into the Mets, and their actions back this up. The Mets have made very modest investments into the team in the past few seasons. One exception to that is the Jason Bay deal, and the only way I can explain that anomaly is that they felt they had to invest that money into “hope” to ensure the fans wouldn’t turn their backs on them.

The Mets as a franchise previously relied heavily on “funny money” to cover their day to day expenses. That money is now gone. With it much of the owners fortune. Now your facing a long season as the team is largely predicted to struggle, thus driving attendance even worse. It could be a perfect storm, at the very worst time.

Then consider the lawsuit on top of it all. The Trustee is seeking $1 Billion dollars from the Wilpons. Even if the Wilpons are able to settle this out of court, I don’t see them settling for less then the $300 million that is reportedly what they profited over the years. That’s a big number, especially when you add it onto the $500 million they have already claimed to have lost. By estimates a 25% stake in the Mets on paper would be worth about $215 million. This isn’t taking into account the fact that the Mets, CitiField, and SNY have a lot of debt, so there is no telling what it would actually end up selling for. Would it be enough? Most people seem to think it wouldn’t be, and they’d be forced to sell more, if not everything.

Read it here: ESPN-NY Legal experts weigh in.

This particular excerpt could really spell doom for the Mets as a franchise for the near future:

Conceivably, if they go to court, they could get slapped with an $800 million, $900 million, $1 billion judgment and instead of having to sell a portion of their baseball team — 20 to 25 percent — they may have to sell the whole thing at that point? If they settle, they’re cutting their losses and only need to sell a quarter of the team.

“Right. But follow one other thing here that is interesting: They’re alleging the Mets as a team, the entity that owns it, was an investor and participant. So they could wind up that not only the Wilpons would have to pay money back, but the Mets team itself would have to pay money back. If it were $40 million or $50 million, if the team doesn’t have that kind of cash, you’ve got a Texas Rangers situation. It isn’t a question of the value of the team. It’s does the team have $50 million worth of cash that they could pay to satisfy the judgment? Or do they have $50 million of value that some bank is going to lend them? And if a bank would lend them $50 million, let’s assume it’s at 10 percent interest, that’s $5 million a year of interest that’s got to hit the Mets’ cash flow. The team may not be able to sustain it.”

To read the entire thing yourself, go eat a heavy meal first – your gonna be a while, go here: Wilpon-Madoff Lawsuit Unsealed

Fernando A. Bohorquez, Jr., a Baker & Hostetler partner representing the Trustee.:

“There are thousands of victims of Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme. Saul Katz is not one of them. Neither is Fred Wilpon. And neither are the rest of the Sterling Equities’ partners. In fact, Saul Katz, Fred Wilpon, the other Sterling partners, … were collectively one of the largest beneficiaries of Madoff’s fraud, reaping hundreds of millions in fictitious profits over Sterling’s quarter-century relationship with Madoff.”

Saying the Wilpon empire was propped up by Madoff money:

Saul Katz, Fred Wilpon and their partners capitalized on their close personal connection with Madoff and used their BLMIS investments to anchor the Sterling empire. Madoff money flowed through every aspect of Sterling’s business; whether real estate, baseball or private equity, virtually every Sterling business held investments with BLMIS,” said Mr. Bohorquez.

Not funny, but tells you of the aggressive pursuit by Trustee:

suit even attempts to recover $27.5 million in “fictious profits” from 1 of Jeff’s children

On how the Wilpons were believed to have been warned about the Madoff scheme:

Given Sterling’s dependency on Madoff, it comes as no surprise that the partners willfully turned a blind eye to every red flag of fraud before them. The warning signs were many and varied, ranging from cautionary counsel from financial industry experts and trusted advisors to Madoff’s schemes to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

Other Warnings:

Suit also says Wilpons were warned of potential trouble with Madoff in 2007 by Merrill-Lynch.

Wilpons/Katz also received warnings in 2002 and 03 from various outside parties, suit says

They “made so much easy money from Madoff for so long that despite the many objective indicia of fraud before them, the Sterling partners chose to simply look the other way”

And this my fellow Mets fan’s is the scariest part:

Suit also says Wilpons so dependent on Madoff financing their activities they had to restructure >$500 million in debt after fraud uncovered

So aside from all this, the Wilpons had $500 million on debt that had to restructure, could it be CitiField debt? Saying that none of this would effect the Mets is laughable at this point.

Thanks in large part to @AdamRubinESPN for a lot of the information.

Read: Mets Official Statement
Read: Madoff Trustee’s Official Statement

I am gonna try to keep this post as brief as possible, cause you know me, I could rant on for pages and pages. I will start with a quote from the Trustee:

There are thousands of victims of Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme. But Saul Katz is not one of them. Neither is Fred Wilpon. And neither are the rest of the partners at Sterling.

As I can best understand it – the numbers break down like this:

Trustee: The Mets withdrew $300 million more then they ever put into the Madoff fund.
Wilpons: We are victims because we thought we had $500 million more in the account, and we lost that.

In essence regardless of what the Wilpons initial investment was, they figured they made $800 million in profit. Of that profit they withdrew $300 of it (plus their initial investment) leaving another $500 million to apparently continue to accrue imaginary additional profits.

Basically the Wilpons think they are victims cause they lost their additional $500 million after already profiting $300 of other peoples money. Listen, I understand it sucks when you think you have $500 million in a safe place and it turns out you don’t (well no, I don’t understand, but I can try to imagine). But they need to step back and think about all the people who lost EVERYTHING.

What about all the Mets employees who had their 401k’s invested heavily in the Madoff fund (90% reportedly) and now have nothing?

I am still digesting all the info, but right now I am flabbergasted by the Wilpons delusions….

There is a lot of bickering back and forth but the bottom line is that the Wilpons team accused the Trustee of the Madoff victims of strategically leaking sealed information in an effort to smear the Wilpons. Because of this the Wilpon team filed motions to request the lawsuit be unsealed and it’s felt this could happen today. The hearing was originally dated for Feb 9th.

Via: MetsBlog.com