Wlipons Must Pay Trustee, Go To Trial

Just sell the damn team Fred...please:

The New York Mets are preparing for the baseball season, and the team's owners will have to prepare for trial.


U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled Monday that Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon, his family, businesses and charities must pay as much as $83.3 million to the trustee trying to recover funds to net losers in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. He also ruled that the sides will go to trial March 19 over an additional $303 million that trustee Irving Picard is seeking.


Of the approximately $83 million, only $1.7 million is associated with Mets accounts. The rest is associated with other Wilpon businesses and charities.


The Wilpons' lawyers had filed a motion to have the case tossed entirely, but that was rebuffed by Rakoff in Monday's ruling.


"We are preparing for trial," Sterling Partners, one of Wilpon's holdings, said in a statement. "We look forward to demonstrating that we were not willfully blind to the Madoff fraud."


As a matter of law, Picard had contended, he was entitled to $83,309,162 in Ponzi scheme profit allegedly made by the Wilpons in the immediate two years before Madoff's arrest on Dec. 11, 2008.


The Wilpons had asserted that because they thought they had $500 million invested with Madoff at the time his scheme was discovered by authorities, they actually were losers -- despite withdrawing more money than they had deposited with Madoff.


Picard believes he also is entitled to $303 million in principal invested by the Wilpons with Madoff because, he alleges, they had warning signs a fraud might be occurring. Rakoff has set a high standard for Picard to be able to collect principal -- "willful blindness," meaning the Wilpons would have had to all but have known something was awry with Madoff and purposely looked the other way.


Rakoff wrote in Monday's decision that he is skeptical that Picard can prove to a jury that the Wilpons acted in bad faith with respect to their investment with Madoff, but Rakoff decided the trustee had enough evidence and witnesses to allow him to try to attempt it at trial.


"The Court remains skeptical that the trustee can ultimately rebut the defendants' showing of good faith, let alone impute bad faith to all the defendants," Rakoff wrote in Monday's decision. "Nevertheless, there remains a residue of disputed factual assertions from which a jury could infer either good or bad faith depending on which assertions are credited."

RELATED: $83M question: Will Wilpons lose Mets?

After Another Lost Season For The Mets They Must Resign Jose Reyes

As I write this the Mets are four games below .500 and 11.5 games out of the wild-card spot. If it matters any they're also 20.5 games behind the Phillies. In other words the 2011 season is over and it's time to look towards 2012. Now mind you, the 2011, considering the circumstances, Mets have played well and when all's said and done this is still Omar Minaya's fault/team. But the big question that has to be on Met fans minds is where do we go from here and to me, that starts with the Mets being left with no choice but to resign Joe Reyes.

I mean, so many injuries and visits to the disabled list for such a young, seemingly fit 28yo man is startling (to say the least) and its Sandy Alderson's job to find some kind of solution to the problem. But without Reyes this team just has no hope, it's that simple. And no it doesn't mean you give Reyes a blank check, because Reyes and his agent need to be fair to the Mets and honest about themselves and Reyes' injuries too. But the Mets must resign him, they just must. Their future literally hangs in the balance.

With Jason Bay Being A Complete Bust, Mets Need To Keep Carlos Beltran

Mike Francesa says it all the time and I completely agree with him: Carlos Beltran is under appreciated in this town. Yeah, I was mad too when ended the 2006 season with Beltran's bat lying on his shoulder while watching that nasty Adam Wainwright curveball, but that team had no business being in a Game 7 against a team they were much better than in the first place. To think too what a difference a healthy Pedro Martinez or David Wright hitting close to his average could've made in that series.

But getting back to Beltran, when healthy, as his 5th All-star appearance in 7 years as a Met proved, he's still one of the best in the game. Consider too, the possibility of five 100-RBI seasons as a Met along with three Gold Gloves and let's not forget that the guy has repeatedly stated how much he wants to stay a Met. Sure, he'll be 35 next year, one could make the case that he's back to playing on such a high-level only because he's after that one last big contract and the local media's been practically begging the Mets to get rid of him. But here's the biggest reason to keep Carlos Beltran a Met: there's no one out there who could replace him and thanks to Jason Bay being a  flat-out bust, the Mets would be God-awful without him. I mean, a horrible Bay, Angel Pagan and the oft-fragile Fernando Martinez does not leave you wanton for Mets tickets next year, much less any chance of competing with the Phillies and Braves in the NL East. In other words, the Mets must keep Carlos Beltran.

Did Ike Davis Quit On The Mets?

ESPN.com:

First baseman Ike Davis expressed skepticism he would be able to return to the New York Mets this season.


Speaking to children at Coleman Country Day Camp in Merrick, N.Y., on Long Island, on Tuesday, Davis candidly described his left ankle as "not good."


"But next year I will be back and healthy," Davis told the campers. "I promise."


When told of Davis' comments, manager Terry Collins said he was not resigned to the first baseman missing the remainder of the season, but he added, "I'm surprised he would say something like that."


Davis later told reporters, "I'm not throwing in the towel. In three weeks if I'm not healthy, I'm not playing this year."


Davis injured the ankle in a collision with third baseman David Wright by the pitcher's mound at Coors Field in Denver on May 10 and has not returned to the lineup because of lingering discomfort when he attempts to run.

Why else would Davis come out with that weird statement today about possibly not coming back this season? I don't know Ike Davis from Adam, but rarely have a seen a player act so nonchalant when it comes to returning from an injury. After his sizzling start this year, I thought Ike was ready to take this team by the horns and maybe lead them to a wild-card birth. But then he twisted his ankle and what once was supposed to be  short 15-day stint on the DL has turned into maybe being out for the season. And I know that he's a laidback guy and all, but at no time during this whole mess did Davis seem urgent on coming back and of course, the Mets medical staff being who they are found another way to make things worse. Granted, injuries are injuries and each player is different, but with Albert Pujols just coming back early from a broken wrist that was supposed to sideline him for six weeks, Davis' longterm absence from the Mets lineup deserves more scrutiny and maybe even some shame.

Jose Reyes Going On The DL Is Good For The Mets

Simply put, Reyes going on the DL today is yet, another reminder of no matter how great he is, he can be just as fragile. No wonder the only thing Fred Wilpon got right in that New Yorker article was that he won't be getting Carl Crawford money. No wonder any owner outside the Mets thinking of signing Reyes to some outlandish dead this offseason may want to back off upon seeing him on the DL, yet again--which in turn, is a good thing for the Mets.

Mets Would Be A Lot Better If Jason Bay Was Just Decent

Of course, they'd probably be a lot better (and contending for first place in the NL East) if David Wright, Ike Davis and Johan Santana weren't all injured. But with all the praise, and deservedly so, that Terry Collins has gotten for having the Mets above .500 this late into the season, I can't but think how if Jason Bay was just having an average season in 2011 we'd be a lot better. I mean, even with his grand slam yesterday Bay has 20 RBI's for the season--that's how bad he's been. Consider that Prince Fielder leads the NL with 68 RBI's and Jose Reyes, batting from the leadoff spot all year, has 12 more RBI's than Bay does. In other words, the fact that after 79 games, the Mets are 40-39, despite Jason Bay being a phenomenal bust, makes for Terry Collins being a certified genius.

The Real Reason Why Andy Martino Asks Mets Players About Gay Marriage

In a column that would certainly make his far-Left colleagues proud, Martino did a small feature on Mets thoughts on the gay marriage in today's Daily News. Needless to say the column is drenched with snark loonery as Martino, who already highlighted Ron Darling's support for gay marriage in a column yesterday (and in this one), goes out of his way to include a single quote from an anonymous Met player--after asking him if the professional sports locker room was ready to accept an openly gay athlete: "Asked why this was, one Met said, “Most of us are still Neanderthals.”

Regardless of New York becoming the 6th state to approve of same-sex marriage last Friday, why is Martino asking Met players about it? Does Martino ask players about rent laws in the city or their feelings on teacher layoffs? Of course not. But even when it comes to sports, the liberal press in this city (and across the country) looks for any chance it can to condemn conservative people in this country. That's why Martino's column isn't objective reporting, it's leftwing activism. And it's why conservative athletes should be afraid to speak openly on contentious subjects like politics (recently, retired New York Giant and Super Bowl hero David Tyree, citing his religious convictions, got condemned for daring to openly oppose gay marriage, while pro athletes like Michael Strahan and Sean Avery received nothing but praise and kudos for supporting it.)

Personally, I don't think most people, much less million-dollar pro athletes, care one way or another about gay marriage--there's just other way more important things going on in their lives. Besides that, due to a  number of facts, but mostly apathy, I don't think most people, especially professional athletes, are astute enough to debate politically contentious subjects in general--more reason for the liberal press to take advantage of them anyway. 

Yesterday, after remarking that there's a difference between "gay rights" and the civil rights era of the 60's (something I totally agree with), Curtis Granderson was clearly smart enough to give a politically correct response on gay marriage and leave it at that. But most athletes aren't as smart as Granderson when it comes to politics and activist liberal columnists like Martino, Mike Lupica and Felix Bondy know that. 

That said, somebody ought to make conservative pro athletes more aware of what these guys are really trying to do when they're asked "innocent" questions about subjects like gay marriage.