City Hall is just a few blocks from the federal courthouse where an acrimonious legal fight raised serious doubts about Fred Wilpon’s ability to hold on as principal owner of the Mets. That uncertainty ended two months ago when he settled the case that threatened his sports and real estate empire.
Enlarge This Image
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Mr. Met (with whom he exchanged a high-four) and the Mets co-owner Fred Wilpon during the announcement that the All-Star Game would be played at Citi Field in 2013.
Related
-
In Shift on Willets Pt., City Strikes New Development Deal
(May 17, 2012)
-
Reds 6, Mets 3: Santana Gets Job Done; Bullpen Doesn’t
(May 17, 2012)
Keep up with the latest news on The Times’s baseball blog.
Go to the Bats Blog
Major League Baseball
- Live Scoreboard
- Standings | Wild Card
- Stats | Injuries
Yankees
- Schedule/Results
- Roster | Stats
Mets
- Schedule/Results
- Roster | Stats
On Wilpon’s return to Lower Manhattan on Wednesday, there were no legal issues to discuss or wrap up. Instead, he announced that the Mets would host the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field.
He stood with Commissioner Bud Selig and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — an unlikely scene if Wilpon had lost at trial in which he and the Mets co-owner Saul Katz were accused by the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff of turning a blind eye to signs that Madoff was a fraud over their many years of investing with him. Instead, as part of the settlement, the willful blindness claims were dropped.
“I had great faith in the Wilpons,” Selig said, with Mr. Met behind him, “and I was very confident things would work out.” His confidence, he said, had been rewarded.
The news conference was the first public appearance together by Selig and Wilpon since the legal fight ended.
In their ride to City Hall on Wednesday morning, Wilpon said he told Selig, “Now that this case is over — and it’s been very painful, it’s in the rearview mirror — there are no challenges in life for me.”
He added, “I can take any challenge.”
Wilpon, 75, limped slightly into City Hall and carried a cane because of surgery two weeks ago to replace his left hip. He has had an artificial right hip for 21 years.
He disagreed that selecting the Mets to host the 2013 All-Star Game was Selig’s way of saying he believes in the Mets and his family. “I don’t even consider it that way,” he said. “I know Major League Baseball believes in the Wilpons and the Mets.”
The Mets recently repaid M.L.B. the $25 million they borrowed in 2010 out of the money raised by selling limited partnerships in the team.
With a record of 20-16, the Mets are performing better than expected. Attendance is down about 5 percent. and the team may still lose a lot of money this season. But their top player, third baseman David Wright, was hitting .408 going into Wednesday night’s game.
Last year, in a New Yorker article, Wilpon declared that Wright was “not a superstar.”
Asked if he wanted to change his opinion, Wilpon said, “I think he’s playing like a superstar now.”
Selig insisted that awarding the All-Star Game to the Mets was not a favor to a longtime friend and ally — and that announcing Citi Field as the host was not delayed because of the Mets’ financial problems.
Citi Field is the overwhelming reason for awarding the game to the Mets. Since 1991, M.L.B. has staged the All-Star Game at a new ballpark 15 times, the most recent one being Busch Stadium in St. Louis in 2009. This year’s game is being played at the recently renovated Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.
The All-Star Game will be returning to New York five years after it was played at Yankee Stadium — an unusually brief time between hosting the event in the same city.
The briefest period was three years: the game was held at Yankee Stadium in 1939 and the Polo Grounds in 1942. Then it was in Chicago at Wrigley Field in 1947 and at Comiskey Park in 1950.
The last time the Mets hosted the game was in 1964, four years after it was played at Yankee Stadium. It was the first season for Shea Stadium.
In that afternoon game at Shea 48 years ago, the National League won, 7-4, on a game-ending home run by Johnny Callison. The crowd of 50,850 watched a game that lasted 2 hours 37 minutes.
In those days, the All-Star Game was a one-day affair, not a five-day extravaganza as it is now.
The July 16, 2013, game in Flushing will be preceded by activities that start the Friday before. It is likely that two events that occurred five years ago will be repeated: the Fan Fest at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and the parade of All-Stars and Hall of Famers in Chevrolets along Sixth Avenue.