In an extensive New Yorker feature about Fred Wilpon's rags-to-riches tale, the Mets' principal owner does make several pointed comments about the team. Among them:

Jose Reyes will not be getting a super-huge contract from the Mets. "He thinks he’s going to get Carl Crawford money,” Wilpon said, referring to Crawford's seven-year, $142 million contract with the Boston Red Sox. “He’s had everything wrong with him. He won’t get it.”

On Carlos Beltran, Wilpon refers to Beltran's huge postseason with the Houston Astros in 2004 and says: “We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on that one series. He’s sixty-five to seventy percent of what he was.”

On whether the franchise might snakebit, Wilpon makes another Beltran reference. Author Jeffrey Toobin writes:

At one point, I mentioned to Wilpon the theory that the Mets might be cursed. He gave a sort of half laugh, and said, “You mean” -- and then pantomimed a checked swing of the bat. Any Mets fan (I am one) would understand the reference. The Mets took the 2006 National League Championship Series to a seventh game against the Cardinals.

Wilpon said about David Wright: "Really good kid. A very good player. Not a superstar."

Wilpon does like Ike Davis apparently. "Good hitter," Wilpon says. "[Word for poop] team. Good hitter. ...We're snakebitten, baby."

Bernie Madoff then offers Wilpon endorsements in the article:

He wrote Toobin in an e-mail: “Fred was not [at] all stock market savvy and Saul [Katz] was not really either. They were strictly Real Estate people. Although I explained the Strategy to them they were not sophisticated enough to evaluate it properly, nor were most of my other individual clients. They were not in a position to perform the necessary due diligence and did not have access to necessary financial info or records.”

In another interview, Madoff says: “He must feel that I betrayed him, as do most of my friends who were involved. Hopefully, they will understand the pressures I was under. I made money for them legitimately to start, but then I got trapped and was not able to work my way out of it. It just became impossible for me to extricate myself, or even try and extricate myself.”