Yesterday while I was deep diving about Follow The Money, I stumbled across this from the NY Times in 1998. The bold is mine.
From the time he was 10, Jeff Wilpon has been eager — maybe too eager — to follow his father. At that age he carried a homemade business card identifying himself as Director of Construction. His father, Fred Wilpon, was an owner of Sterling Equities, a real estate conglomerate he founded with his brother-in-law Saul Katz. In 1980, when Jeff was a high school senior in Roslyn, N.Y., his father and uncle bought the Mets. Jeff was so gung-ho to join the front office that he gave up every boy’s dream — a potential career as a professional athlete. He had been drafted by the Montreal Expos out of college and believes he could have started at catcher in the major leagues, he said, but quit after one spring training session to join the family business.
”I always knew I wanted to do what my dad did,” he said, sitting, like his father, with legs crossed in Fred Wilpon’s office in Sterling Plaza, on Fifth Avenue at 47th Street. From time to time, his father glanced dotingly at him.
Source: Bringing a Son Up Right (Right Up to the Top) – The New York Times
Give me a fucking break. He could have made the majors but gave up so he could get a job with the Mets? As if he couldn’t have bounced around the minors THEN got a job with the Mets? As if he couldn’t have made Cooperstown and THEN got a job with the Mets? As if even if he weren’t that good, the Mets wouldn’t throw him a bone and look at him? Hell, Tommy Lasorda did that for his nephew Mike and it turned out OK.
Come on Times, you’re better than selling that story.
