Happy Bobby Bonilla Day!

BobbyGimbyNeverWroteASongAbout

ThisDayVille

From the Wikiplex:

...From 1992 to 1994, Bonilla was the highest-paid player in the league, earning more than $6 million per year. Since 2011, Bonilla has been paid approximately $1.19 million by the New York Mets each year and he will receive that same amount every year until July 1, 2035. Some fans refer to these payments on July 1 as "Bobby Bonilla Day". This was part of a deal made when the Mets released Bonilla before the 2000 season while still owing him $5.9 million for the final year of his contract...

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I  only saw Bonilla play, live, once.

And we sure as heckfire didn't slap our money down to see him. 

Instead, C. and I schlepped across the Bay to old Candlestick on a late August evening in 1992 to see the Giants and one of our favourite minor leaguers of all time, Steve Springer, get a very, very rare start at second base for the New York Mets.

In a professional baseball career that spanned fourteen years, Springer spent ten of those years stalled out at Triple A, the highest rung in the minor leagues. And in all that time he played fewer than ten games in the big leagues.

On that chilly summer night in 1992 Springer got the start at 2nd base for the Mets. He went two-for-three at the plate and was mobbed by his teammates after the game. 

But the play I remember most was a lazy fly ball to short right off the bat of Matt Williams in the bottom of the 4th. 

Bonilla, the Mets' right fielder didn't even move. Meanwhile, Springer sprinted out at break neck to a spot without looking and, at the last second, looked up, located the ball and caught it over his shoulder.

I don't know this for certain, but I'm pretty sure that the $37,654.32 Bonilla was paid for that one game was more than Springer made for the entire 1992 season given that he was promptly sent back to the minors soon thereafter, well before his cup of coffee even got cold.

Go figure.

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After we saw that game at Candlestick, I wrote a story about it for the local (and long lamented) 'Bleacher Report' given that Springer was a big part of the PCL Championship winning Vancouver Canadians team in 1989. When a few hardcopies made their way down the coast by snail mail I sent sent one of them to Springer. A few weeks later he actually called up to thank me for it.

Which, it would appear, is just the kind of guy Springer was and still is.

The following is something he wrote on a Mets fan board when his name came up a while ago:

I am Steve Springer, and I enjoyed every minute of my 14 year career, though mostly all but about a month was in the minors. I spent 11 years in AAA and got over 1600 minor league hits, including playoffs, and 4 ML hits. I scouted with the Arizona Diamondbacks for 5 years and was the West Coast supervisor for three. Now I am an agent with a company called Gaames. I have a wife and two great kids. I made a CD called qualityatbats.com that I am getting great feedback from. I talk about the mental side of hitting, the stuff I learned when it was too late....


Imagine that.

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Alternative sub-header?...."Make The Wilpons Pay!"  (all of it)

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