Saturday, March 5, 2011

Shunned By MLB/Banks, Wilpon Turns To Scalpers For Money

Boy I'm sure glad that Fred Wilpon has assured us numerous times that that little Madoff diversion was not going to impede "in any way" how the Mets will be run.

In recent days we have learned of the $25 million loan given the team by Major League Baseball. And just recently MLB has said "no mas" to the idea of lending the club even more money.

The big banks that the team has turned to also seem to be turning a blind eye to the club's financial direness. And when banks won't make shaky loans any more, then what exactly is this country coming to?

The team also looked into whether Federal bail-out money might be available to keep the Mets' ship afloat.  But White Sox fan President Barack Obama has turned a blind eye to the New York team's plight.

In a pitiful scene Fred Wilpon has been seen taking the maximum sum out of his CitiBank ATM machine each afternoon. But that's too little and too late.

What it has come down to is that Mr. Wilpon had to meet the other day with Guido Pascucci the head of the National Union of Ticket Scalpers ("NUTS" to you) and beg for a loan from him.

NUTS has no official office per se so Wilpon had to meet him at Pascucci's usual place of work, a street corner one block short of the parking lot at CitiField.

By the way, if the name sounds familiar, we learned that Guido is the third cousin (once removed) of Mets' farmhand Val Pascucci. And in what must just be a coincidence Val was just given a larger locker at the Port St. Lucie complex and has been told that he now is in the mix for the second base job. This is particularly surprising since he hasn't played that position since Little League.

The word on the street is that Wilpon requested a multimillion dollar loan from NUTS and as collateral he is prepared to offer EITHER a 20% share in the team or his collection of autographed balls. The latter have been signed by Darryl Strawberry, Bob Ojeda, and one by Dennis Ribant.

Pascucci was hesitant to commit on short notice. He was however able to sell Wilpon four seats to the Mets' opening day game at only 80% of face value. The scalper told The Apple that the only time it's ever been harder to move Mets tickets was when he was trying to sell tickets to a Milli Vanilli concert shortly after their lip-synching fiasco was exposed.

The Apple will continue to monitor the situation.

All articles featured on The Apple are fictitious. No Mets were harmed in the writing of this story. Story by Larry Smith.  You can follow Larry Smith on twitter @dr4sight 

No comments:

Post a Comment

This Month's Most Popular

All Time Most Popular