Long Live Shea Stadium: Anyone have a Couple Dollars?

As everyone obviously already knows, below was the press release that the Mets sent on Friday. This is in a response that the Wilpon's may be sued for as much as 1 BILLION dollars for their involvement with the Madoff scandal. Obviously if that does come to fruition, the Wilpon's may need to have more than a minority owner. But until that time comes, all we can do is wait and see what happens, versus speculating when we don't know the facts in the case.

I know a lot of people are unhappy with the Wilpon's as owners, but they actually have been more than supportive since owning the team solely since 2002. They are not to blame for the poor baseball choices that were made by Omar and company. Yes, they put Omar in charge, but they also gave more than enough resources for him to succeed (140+ million dollar payroll).

So I view this as a smart move for the Wilpon's, and trying to cover their bases if in fact the lawsuit does take shape to the tune of 1 billion dollars. So do the readers of Long Live Shea Stadium want to start up a fund and offer proposal to be minority owners of the Mets?

In other news, 3 weeks from tomorrow is the first full team workout, and I will be there live blogging from Port St. Lucie. I'm wearing my Mets sweatshirt and hat again, and can't wait for baseball to finally be here once again!

January 28, 2011

Dear Mets Fans:

As Sterling Equities announced in December, we are engaged in discussions to settle a lawsuit brought against us and other Sterling partners and members of our families by the Trustee in the Madoff bankruptcy. We are not permitted to comment on these confidential negotiations while they are ongoing.

However, to address the air of uncertainty created by this lawsuit, and to provide additional assurance that the New York Mets will continue to have the necessary resources to fully compete and win, we are looking at a number of potential options including the addition of one or more strategic partners. To explore this, we have retained Steve Greenberg, a Managing Director at Allen & Company, as our advisor.

Regardless of the outcome of this exploration, Sterling will remain the principal ownership group of the Mets and continue to control and manage the team's operations. The Mets have been a major part of our families for more than 30 years and that is not going to change.

As we have said before, we are totally committed to having the Mets again become a World Series winner. You deserve nothing less.

We wanted to share this information with you concurrent with sharing it with all Mets employees and the media. Thank you for your ongoing support.