Now, about the For Sale tag on the Mets. One billionaire’s ready to play ball. Two showbiz showboaters are showing off to make a show of buying the team. Plus a few others shaking their piggy banks. Comes a new development. Suddenly, an unexpected wrinkle to be ironed out. The existing owners, the Wilpons, just informed bidders they still want to play house. But — tada! — they now wish to stay limited partners. They want to remain part of the new structure. Management, no. Retain a 5 percent stake in the ownership, yes.
Bidding’s down to billionaire Steve Cohen from Great Neck, LI (likely); the duo Josh Harris and David Blitzer, who own basketball’s 76ers and hockey’s Devils (less likely); and a group of investors fronted by A-Rod and J.Lo (not a chance). J.Lo should stick to her NBC reality show “World of Dance,” which just wrapped its fourth season.
Final offers to buy the Mets have to be placed by Aug. 31.
Robert Trump was a giver
Robert Trump traded Mar-a-lago for Millbrook, NY. Instead of looking to crash a photo op, he’d happily ride his tractor, clear his fields. The president’s brother, whom we lost Saturday, was a hardcore New Yorker. First Queens, then city executive, then country farmer. Besides bankers and billionaires, his second-act BFFs included a local sheriff and a gravel miner.
A bushel and a peck of good times was with second wife Ann Marie, whose Italian family owned Montauk’s Gurneys. Adoring him, Ann Marie gave this city boy turned country gent a happy second chapter. Took him to a local fund-raiser for shelter animals, and to Monte’s, their little family-style Italian eatery in Dutchess County, where a sandwich was named after Robert. Having worked with the Trump Organization, she became his longtime love. Even when living in his brother’s shadow, he then had something no one else had — Ann Marie. Knowing Robert from his earlier rah-rah days, we understood how happy he now was. I think I was the only one to write about their quiet wedding.
Robert had rescue horses, five German Shepherds and a pot-bellied pig, who had the run of the house like an honorary sixth dog. He was even housebroken. The pig, that is. At their upstate hideaway, no paparazzi crouched in the bushes, no protesters knocked at his door. The guy was just “Rob” to the locals. Button-down oxfords, tanned, white hair, tall, handsome. A giver, he gave help. A philanthropist, he signed on for causes. A history student, he could rattle off what Jefferson had for breakfast. Doting Grampa to grandchildren and step-children, they rode horses together. Rode his tractor together. Long walks, long talks. Anger at this niece, a roach who crept out of a hole to write hate about the family, gnawed at him. He tried to step on her. His final weeks in hospitals were tough. We knew he might not make it.
Ovation for NYPD
Bar Italia restaurant. Mad Ave. Upper East Side. High-class address. Last week, 7:30 p.m.-ish, an A-1 list is dining outside. An unsightly bum begins rumbling through the outdoor tables terrifying everyone. The NYPD showed — not one, not two, but three cars. As our cops hauled him away, the diners all applauded — and shouted to the NYPD: “We love you guys.”
Watching words
The board of elections is thinking to send campaigners a notice. Warning them to refrain from lousy language. Former Rep. Claudia Tenney, scratching and pawing for her old upstate seat, used “BS” in an ad. Parents were shocked! They bitched to the state board of elections — since we’re all high-class today with our murders, break-ins, stabbings, released cons, peeing on the street and abundant homelessness. Officials now consider sending all candidates language reminders — as in, what the eff is no longer allowed. Today, even superiorly classy high-level folk such as ourselves now have to take the high road.
The Basement Blues, to be sung as some caregiver leads the candidate out of the cellar:
Over hill, Over dale You will hit the losing trail
As the Trumpers go rolling along
In and out, hear them shout, counter march and right about
As those red states go rolling along.
Only in America, kids, only in America.