Mets' buyout makes him Bobby Bonanza, but …

Sporting News, The, Jan 17, 2000 by Jon Heyman

Bobby Bonilla once ominously offered to show a writer the Bronx. But now Bobby Bo spends his time in tony Greenwich, Conn. He has achieved a lot in baseball, and he has the look and feel of a man who's completely satisfied with what he has accomplished.

He even confided in midseason of 1999 that he wouldn't mind if the Mets released him because he'd simply go home to Greenwich and watch cable TV on his couch, and that might be the truest thing he said all year.

Bonilla tells everyone he wants to keep playing, but he did nothing in '99 to suggest he's willing to make sacrifices for his team or his career. He wouldn't lose weight, wouldn't do an injury-rehab assignment, wouldn't take extra batting practice. Once, he wouldn't pinch hit when manager Bobby Valentine asked.

Bonilla's a hard man to figure. Lately, he has spent so much time strutting, posturing and acting that he probably doesn't even know himself very well anymore. Perhaps that's one reason things never worked out for him in his hometown of New York. He recently mentioned what a great team man he was last season, and he probably believes it. Even in the worst of the turmoil, as Bonilla was writing a sorry ending to a mostly stellar career, acquaintances said he would affect a wide smile and tell them how "great" things were.

The Mets released him on January 3, the first workday of the new millennium and a few weeks after he guaranteed "fireworks in the millennium" if he didn't play regularly in 2000. Bonilla has been unable to back up his inappropriately loud talk with his play, but a contract that guaranteed him $5.9 million for 2000 served as a major threat to the Mets, who tired of his act. Bonilla was holding all the cards, so to speak.

The best the Mots could do was get him to defer his pay--with interest--for 11 years. Under terms of the agreement, Bonilla will be paid nearly $1.2 million every year from 2011 to 2035. The total will come to approximately $29.8 million, or about $835,000 more than the club gave Bonilla in December 1991 when they made him the game's richest player.

The arrangement seems like an injustice to fans who watched open-mouthed as Bonilla topped himself with one bad act after another, and that's not even considering his .160 batting average. Of all the bad moments, the two toppers were when Bonilla challenged Valentine to repair to the manager's office--during a game--to "settle things," and when he played cards with Rickey Henderson in the final moments of the Mets' last playoff game of '99.

The card-playing incident came as no surprise to some teammates. Bonilla spent so little time on the bench he created a strong impression he had no interest. Friends say Bonilla's sense of frustration was overwhelming after a notable career highlighted by heroics in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. At times, he seemed like the caricature of the self-centered modern ballplayer. But there's no denying his generosity. His annual charity bowling tournament, where he made the "fireworks" remark, has raised more than a million dollars for the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

There is considerable doubt as to whether Bonilla, who turns 37 in February, has anything left, and he probably shares in that doubt The Mets suggested that Bonilla lose weight during last season (his listed 240 pounds wasn't anywhere near the truth). He responded that this was no issue and kept getting bigger--instead of the 15-day disabled list, he appeared to be on the 15-pound D.L.--even as a knee injury was being used as the excuse for his poor performance. He struggled all year but did not take extra batting practice once.

"It's an unfortunate thing that he got hurt," Valentine says. "But I think he could have done more to be as good as he could be. I think he's a good guy deep down, and I wish him the best." Valentine says he saw Bonilla's generosity with teammates and friends. But Valentine is perceptive when he says of Bonilla, "He misses the big picture and gets caught up in the little picture."

If agent Danny Horwits is to find the job that Bonilla says he wants, he needs to convince someone that New York and Bonilla--or Valentine and Bonilla--simply were a bad mix. "He was liked in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Florida," Horwits points out. Rumors recently have circulated that the Pirates might again have interest

It's true Bonilla's act played better when he played often and better. Horwits did a great job securing Bonilla's future security, but now he has a tougher job-finding someone to happily employ him.

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