With pitchers and catchers set to report tomorrow, it's time to talk baseball again... and no baseball talk would be complete with the ongoing mess that is the New York Mets. Just when it appeared that maybe the Mets had gotten their house in order by clearing out Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel... Bernie Madoff resurfaced. Mets owner Fred Wilpon and his son Jeff are being sued by a group alleging that they profited from Madoff's infamous ponzi scheme. Despite the fact that they deny wrongdoing, the Wilpons have put 25% of the Mets up for sale to pay for any possible consequence of the lawsuit.
While most everyone connected to the Mets have denied that the situation will have any affect on the team, David Wright has admitted that probably won't be the case.
"I don't think that you can sit here and say that it's going to have no effect on the clubhouse when you're talking about kind of the family -- really, the head of the family. When something is going on with them, of course it's going trickle down," Wright said. "You have to understand that unfortunately there's some great parts about this business and there's some situations like this."
"As close as I've gotten with the Wilpon family, it kind of hurts to see them go through this and kind of be attacked the way they're being attacked. I've talked to them, and just wanted to let them know that we have their backs and we support them. I kind of feel for what they're having to go through. So hopefully this all works itself out and we can get back to playing baseball. But this is really the best remedy -- getting down here and getting on a baseball field."
Suffice to say, if it is revealed that the Wilpons were complicit in the Madoff scheme in any way they'll probably be ruined and baseball fans, especially Mets fans, won't be sad to see them go.