A parable about thankfulness

by Graydon Gordian

Next time you feel the urge to complain about R.C. Buford, think of me and what I am about to tell you.

I was raised a Mets fan. My father was a Mets fan and, growing up in Austin, I didn’t see much of reason to be a fan of anyone else. Baseball was never really my sport anyways.

Now I live in New York, and I’m still a Mets fan. I’ve heard my good friend Matt Moore say that baseball is primarily about the appreciaton of the color green, and that sounds about right to me. But I still like to watch the games, mostly because I feel like I’m part of a community and I can do something else while it’s on without really missing too much.

I also like to follow the Mets because it keeps me grounded. Being a Spurs fan could spoil a man. All things considered, the team is easy to root for: It’s well run and successful, and by and large comprised of upstanding individuals. In other words, it’s the kind of organization which would never do something like this:

Starting on July 1, 2011, Bobby Bonilla will remain on the franchise’s payroll for 25 years, collecting an annual salary of $1,193,248.20. Those are the terms the Mets agreed to Jan. 3, 2000, when they bought out the final year of Mr. Bonilla’s contract.

Bobby Bonilla, you say? That can’t be right. He’s 47-years-old. He’s been retired from Major League Baseball for nine years.

Oh, no. Trust me. We’re referring to the same Bobby Bonilla. The Bobby Bonilla I used to watch play third base when I visited my grandparents in Pittsburgh. IN THE LATE 80s.

(It’s especially twisted that my second favorite baseball team is the Pirates, who haven’t had a winning season in 17 years, the longest such streak in the history of American professional sports.)

And yet, in 2035, over 45 years after my Poppy took me to Three Rivers Stadium to see Bonilla play, the New York Mets will write him a check for just under $1.2 million and he will finally come off the books. If you think trading for Richard Jefferson was a mistake, how would you feel if you could wait a couple of years, have kids, and they still had plenty of time to graduate college before the team wrote him his last check?

Then again, when the world ends in 2012, the Mets front office is going to be looking pretty savvy.