Ex-MLB star gets another $1.19m payout from the New York Mets... despite not playing for 24 years

The sun rises on another July 1st, marking yet another 'holiday' for New York Mets fans. Happy Bobby Bonilla Day.

Another payment in arguably the most infamous deferred payment setup in sports history gets distributed today as a player who hasn't laced up his cleats since 2001 collects a check for $1,193,248.20.

It's also officially the 10-years-remaining mark on this megadeal - with Bonilla set to continue to collect payments through 2035.

Bonilla signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates in the early 1980s and by 1986, he made his MLB debut with the Chicago White Sox.

Over the course of his career, he'd star for teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates, the New York Mets, and the Baltimore Orioles. He also won the 1997 World Series with the Florida Marlins. He was also a six-time All-Star and had won the Silver Slugger Award three times in his career.  

But by 1999, he was on the decline in the middle of his second stint with the Mets and the team decided to release him.

The only issue was they owed him $5.9million to pay out the rest of his contract.

But Bonilla's agent went to the Mets with an offer: they would agree to have the payment deferred for a decade and with interest, Bonilla would get paid over $1.19m per year every July 1 from 2011 to 2035.

While that meant his payout would balloon from $5.9m to $29.8m, the Mets agreed to the deal.

That's partially because Mets owner Fred Wilpon was heavily invested with Bernie Madoff in his infamous Ponzi scheme at the time.

Wilpon believed that the 10 percent returns he was making on his investments with Madoff would outweigh the eight percent interest he'd have to pay to Bonilla on the $5.9m, so he accepted the deal.

So each year, fans of baseball celebrate the payout as some sort of informal national holiday - with social media always going nuts over the deal.

But it's important to note that Bonilla isn't the only player getting deferred money. Most notably, Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani is only getting paid $2million per year over the length of his 10-year contract before getting paid $68million per year from 2034 to 2043.

Andrew Brandt, a former NFL executive and a professor at Villanova University, tweeted in 2024, 'Always amused at the reaction to Bobby Bonilla’s deferred payments. I don’t know about his interest rates, but know this: Every team, in every sport, would rather defer than pay in present. Money now better than money later. I fought with agents all the time in trying to defer.

The funny thing is, this isn't even the only deferred contract Bonilla is on the receiving end of. He also gets paid another $500,000 from the Baltimore Orioles - having collected payment from them each year since 2004 and running until 2029.