Bobby Bonilla might as well celebrate Christmas on July 1 because on this very day every year, the former baseball player gets exactly $1,193,248.20 richer.
Bonilla is now 57 and has been retired from the sport for 19 years but as part of a quite ridiculous deferred payment plan, he remains one of the highest-paid players due to the seven-figure fee he gets from former employers New York Mets, who he left in 1999.
'Bobby Bonilla day' as it has been branded, has been in place since 2011 and will continue every year right through to 2035 - by which point the former St Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles third baseman will be 72 years of age.
How did such a bizarre arrangement come about we hear you ask? Well, according to CNN, Mets had initially wanted to cut ties with him over 20 years ago but he still had $6 million on his contract.
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Mets owner Fred Wilpon decided to defer payments during negotiations with Bonilla's agent and it was agreed there would be 8% annual interest.
Wilpon thought he had thrashed a deal that would see him making some serious dollar back but was done over by financier/fraudster Bernie Madoff, who defrauded investors out of billions of pounds before being caught and sentenced into 150 years in prison.
Not that Bonilla will be bothered in the slightest as courtesy of that infamous gaffe, he is now in line to make a total of $29.8 millon just sitting with his feet up.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Baseball
