Piazza tips his hat to NYC with Hall of Fame call
Choice of Mets for bust a nod to special bond
NEW YORK On the night Mike Piazza signed the richest contract in baseball history, a seven-year, $91 million deal with the New York Mets in October 1998, he didn’t sleep a wink, wondering, “What did I just do?”
The catcher had committed himself for most of his 30s to a franchise that hadn’t reached the postseason in a decade. By the end of the pact, however, the Mets had won a National League pennant while Piazza had burnished his Hall of Fame credentials and established a lifelong connection with New York.
After his election to the Hall on Wednesday, Piazza returned to the city with which he is inextricably linked and announced that his plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y., would bear a Mets cap.
“I feel like the fans here truly brought me into their family,” Piazza said.
His 1,028 hits, 220 home runs and six All- Star appearances while playing in Queens are worthy of celebration on their own merits, but Piazza also delivered a transcendent sporting moment after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The first sporting event New York hosted after 9/11was a Mets home game Sept. 21, 2001, in which Piazza crushed a game-winning home run in the eighth inning to beat the Atlanta Braves 3-2.
“It changed all of our lives, not on a baseball level but a personal level,” he said Thursday. “My life perspective and focus were different. To be at the right place and right time and come through, I can only think it comes from above.”
That was merely the most public display. Piazza visited Ground Zero and area hospitals. His local Manhattan fire hall, Ladder 3, had lost 12 firefighters; one of them, Mike Carroll, called Piazza his favorite player. Piazza arranged to meet his son Brendan, then 11, and, as documented in a Sports Illustrated article, spent the day with Brendan: eating lunch, swinging in the batting cage, playing video games.
Piazza returned to Ladder 3 on the 10year anniversary of 9/11.
“We are a Met-heavy firehouse — bunch of fans,” Ladder 3 firefighter Eugene Brennan said Thursday. “As formyself, I couldn’t be happier that Mike got in. It’s a great day for New York.”
Piazza worked for everything he earned, joking that his father might have run amok of child labor restrictions if anyone nowadays knew how much time his son had spent in the batting cage. The Los Angeles Dodgers drafted him in the 62nd round in 1988 only as a favor to his father’s friend, Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda. While fellow electee Ken Griffey Jr. said he would not visit the Hall even when playing an exhibition game nearby, Piazza bought a ticket and took a tour early in his career, explaining, “I figured the only way I’d get in was to pay.”
When he arrived in Queens after seven seasons with the Dodgers (and a cameo with the Florida Marlins), Piazza was a star but said he wanted to just and do his job rather than try to be a rock star. He struggled in clutch situations in his first few weeks and was booed.
“(I respect) the history of the fans in New York, their passion, all the way back to the days before all the highlight reels and the new media today, the way they celebrated the game by turning a game into event,” he said. “Their passion, the blue-collar mentality. They really choose carefully who they want to embrace, and I knew that was something, in the beginning, was going to be a challenge.”
By the time he was done playing, Piazza had a career .308 average and 396 homers as a catcher (a record) and 427 overall, with his signature years coming in a city he quickly turned to his side.
“I feel blessed for all the support I received here,” he said. “To be embraced in New York City is very special.”