We should all enjoy something like a Bobby Bonilla Day. But we don’t. Only one 61-year-old former ballplayer receives a payment of $1,193,248.20 from the New York Mets every July 1 through 2035.
Why? Deferred is the word.
It isn’t Shohei Ohtani money, but it’s something. The payments to Bonilla started in 2011, 10 years after he retired. He was a solid hitter, amassing 2,010 hits, 287 home runs and 30.2 wins above replacement during a 16-year career in which he played for seven teams, including a 72-game stint with the Dodgers in 1998.
But it was the Mets, for whom Bonilla played from 1992 to 1995 and again in 1999, who reached an agreement with him to defer his…
