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By now, there are very few diehard sports fans who don’t know that July 1 is Bobby Bonilla Day. For those that are somehow unfamiliar, Bobby Bonilla Day happens every year on July 1, thanks to his New York Mets contract that pays him almost $1.2 million on that day every year until 2035.
This year will mark the 15th of the 25 payments the Mets will pay him before the contract finally comes to end. Bonilla last played in Major League Baseball in 2001. He also last played for the Mets in 1999, but the contract (which was sold at auction for $180,000 in 2023) that is still paying him was actually signed in 1991.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” Bobby Bonilla told Sportico this week while discussing the Los Angeles Dodgers’ many deferred contracts. “It’s a reminder that I did the right thing by putting the money away.”
That is certainly an understatement. Bonilla, who will also have been paid $500,000 per year from the Baltimore Orioles from 2004 to 2028 when that contract comes to an end, will have received more than $42 million since he retired from the game.
“It’s bigger than my birthday,” Bonilla told Sportico about July 1. “People know this date more than they know my birthday. I think it’s very cool. People are just happy that I put the money aside.”
He added that he “wasn’t that much of a big spender” when he played. He just wanted to make sure he had money put away for when his playing days were over. “I never needed five of the same car or 17 houses. I never overdid anything,” he said.
Bonilla, who had over 2,000 hits and drove in more than 1,100 runs during his MLB career, may never make the Hall of Fame, but how many other former players are “celebrated” on the same day each year? “It’s a fun day,” he said.
Funnily enough, Bobby Bonilla’s $1.2 million payments actually pale in comparison to the deferred money some other baseball players are currently receiving. Chris Davis, who last played in 2020, will earn $59 million from the Orioles between 2023 and 2037. Max Scherzer, who last played for the Nationals in 2021, will get $15 million a year from the team every year until 2028. And Ichiro Suzuki, who retired after the 2019 season, will be paid more than $25 million per year by the Seattle Mariners through the year 2032.
Also, right around the Bobby Bonilla Day finally comes to its conclusion in 2035, Shohei Ohtani will begin to collect $68 million on July 1 every year between 2034 and 2043. Will it then start binge referred to as Shohei Day?