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When talking about the Wilpon Era Mets, it’s best to take nothing for granted. Which is why we could understand another round of cautious optimism regarding Steve Cohen’s now-exclusive window to purchase the franchise.
Just look what happened a day earlier in Flushing. All the Mets had to do Thursday to take a unified, teamwide stand on racial injustice was not play that night’s game against the Marlins.
Stay home, see you tomorrow.
But as we’ve seen too often from this current ownership group, the most honorable of intentions end up getting twisted somehow, adding senseless obstacles where none need exist. Ultimately, it was the players — aided by general manager Brodie Van Wagenen’s pushback on his own boss, chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon — who made sure to do the right thing: a unique, powerful on-field tribute with the Marlins.
Even then, the Wilpons couldn’t just let the moment shine. Hours after the day’s narrative had shifted in the Mets’ favor, from Brodie’s hot-mic video to the perfectly executed Citi Field ceremony, both Fred and Jeff released joint statements that not only scolded Van Wagenen, but incorrectly spelled his name, “Brody.”
We bring this up again in light of Cohen’s winning bid for a few reasons. One, to be wary of the Wilpons finally completing the sale of a team they’ve had control of since buying out Nelson Doubleday Jr. in 2002. Their reluctance to ease that grip over a built-in five-year transition period is what led to Cohen backing out of his $2.6 billion purchase attempt earlier this year.
The good news? There is no such clause this time around. And for people familiar with Cohen’s business acumen — he’s now worth an estimated $13 billion — you can expect a far different vibe around the Mets than the circus atmosphere that tends to set up its Big Top in Flushing far too often.
The two adjectives that seem to come up the most about Cohen?
“Smart and competitive,” one friend said.
That’s a great baseline. As is ultra-wealthy, and the Mets, should this sale go through, will be piloted by the richest owner in Major League Baseball. This would be a total paradigm shift for the franchise, even beyond the pre-Madoff years when the Wilpons were consistently among the sport’s top bidders for free-agent talent.
But those days have been over for a while. And if Cohen can finally navigate through the Wilpons this time around, the last roadblock would be approval by 75 percent of MLB’s owners (23 out of 30). Back in December, Manfred sounded welcome to the idea of Cohen buying an 80% stake, at $2.6 billion, and it was impossible to imagine the other owners balking at a price that would significantly raise the value of their clubs.
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- Bru
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