Mets owner Fred Wilpon asked baseball commissioner Bud Selig to “play the bad cop” and help him scuttle a deal that could have resulted in him losing majority control of the team, a new bombshell book reports.
Earlier this year, hedge-fund titan David Einhorn was set to invest $200 million for a 17 percent minority stake in the Mets.
In exchange, Wilpon agreed that if the team didn’t repay Einhorn in five years, he would be able to acquire a majority stake for a nominal amount.
But months after Wilpon agreed to the deal, he got cold feet, fearing he could lose control of the team.
“Wilpon asked Selig to strike the provision requiring him to enable and assist David Einhorn in his pursuit of majority ownership, if Wilpon couldn’t repay him,” author Howard Megdal writes in “Wilpon’s Folly.”
“The idea would be that Selig would play the bad cop. When Major League Baseball put the kibosh on Einhorn, Wilpon would have plausible deniability, and could throw up his hands and say, ‘What can I do? This is how MLB works.’”
Einhorn heard about the dealings and, on Sept. 1, had a heated discussion with Wilpon that resulted in Einhorn walking away from the deal, according to the book.
MLB lawyer Rob Manfred said, “I don’t believe the account in the book is accurate. I think the reason the deal did not come to fruition is the two parties did not have a meeting of the minds on a key provision in the deal.”
A Mets spokesman said, “The author’s desperate self-promotional campaign for relevance has led to perpetuating baseless speculation and complete inaccuracies.”
Megdal told The Post he stands by his reporting. An Einhorn spokesman declined comment.