Mike Piazza: A 62nd Round Hall of Famer.

Michael Joseph Piazza was born in Norristown PA on September 4th, 1968. His father and Tommy Lasorda were friends. His dad was a high school dropout, was a self-made man. He worked in car sales, as a real-estate investor and a entrepreneur. His wife took care of Mike and his four younger brothers. He grew up a Phillies fan and studied Hall of Famer, Mike Schmidt’s, approach to hitting, His family had season seats in the second row behind the Phillie’s dugout.

When he was young, baseball was his singular focus. He would hit baseballs at a mattress propped against a basement wall. Eventually his dad built a batting cage in the backyard where he hit about 300 balls a day, even in the winter. In 1984, his father Vince, arranged through a friend of a friend for Ted Williams to visit their home before appearing at a local card show. The Hall of Famers reaction to watching Mike hit was ” I guarantee you, this kid is going to hit. I never saw anyone better at his age.” Before he left, he autographed Mike’s copy of his book, “The Science of Hitting.” Follow the book kid and I’ll be asking you for tickets.

Vince was also friendly with Tommy Lasorda, the Dodger manager. One day he was invited to be the Dodger bat boy during a game with the Phillies at Veterans Stadium. One of the perks was being able to take BP with the team. He hit one into the seats. He was later invited to do the same thing at Shea Stadium in New York. He hit one out there too. He was 13 when he hit the one in Philly and 14 when he hit it out in New York.

Mike started in high school as a first baseman and hit .442 with 11 homers, breaking the school record. Still he received little attention from major league scouts who did not think he could hit or run. He also was not getting any offers from major colleges. It took a call from Lasorda to Ron Fraser, the Miami baseball coach, to get him a chance to play. He was the backup first baseman his one year at Miami. He then transferred to Miami-Dade North Community College and batted .384.

His strong year still did not convince MLB scouts to consider him a prospect. So the Dodgers selected him in the 62nd round of the 1989 draft simply as a favor to Lasorda. Lasorda still had to convince Ben Wade to sign him after the draft. Wade believed the Dodgers had better 1st base candidates. Lasorda asked, would you sign him if he were a catcher? Wade said yes, Lasorda said ” Sign him, he is a catcher!” Wade signed Mike for a 15,000-dollar signing bonus that day.

He spent his first season with Salem and after the season, volunteered to go to the Dodgers baseball academy in the Dominican Republic, becoming the first US born player to do so. He spent 2 seasons in Class-A ball before moving up to AA San Antonio in 1992. A little over a month later, he was promoted to AAA Albuquerque. He hit .341 with 16 homers. He was a finalist for the USA Today and Sporting News minor league player of the year award.

He was called up to the Dodgers on September 1st and immediately inserted into the starting lineup. He went 3-3 with a double and 2 singles before being removed for a pinch runner. He also walked. His first MLB hit, a double, came off of former Dodger, then a Cub, Mike Harkey. I was at that game sitting down the RF line. He finished the year with a .232 average, one homer and seven driven in. The best was yet to come.

Lasorda named him the everyday catcher in 1993 and he was rewarded with a Rookie of the Year performance by Mike. .318, 35 homers, 112 RBI’s. The 35 homers were the most ever by a rookie catcher, and the 112 RBIs were third most by a rookie up until that time. With Eric Karros winning the award the year before, LA now had two in a row. There would be three more.

Mike was a great hitting catcher as demonstrated by his 10 silver slugger awards, 6 in a row in his first 6 seasons, all with the Dodgers. But defensively, well, he was no Mike Scioscia or Steve Yeager. He also went to six consecutive All-Star games. He was simply, the best hitting catcher in the game, if not all time. Unlike Bench, who combined excellent defense with power and very good hitting, Piazza hit for power and average. Over his parts of seven seasons with the Dodgers, his BA was .331 with a .572 slug and an OPS of .915. This is pretty amazing since the only batting stat he ever led the league in was OPS +. And he did that twice. He never won the MVP award but finished second twice. 96-97. The Dodgers standing in the league had something to do with that.

The Dodgers only made it to the playoffs in two of his seasons and were eliminated in 3 games both times. He kept pounding the ball and racking up numbers. By 1998 he had racked up 168 homers in Dodger blue. But it was not all peaches and cream between him and the team. He was due to be a free agent. It is my belief that if Peter O’Malley was still the owner, Mike would have been signed to a long-term deal.

But O’Malley sold the team. Almost everyone was shocked by this. But Peter’s reasoning was solid. None of his children had any interest in running the team. The added reasoning was if they inherited the Dodgers, the estate taxes would be gigantic. So, the Dodgers, who had been a family-owned franchise were bought by Ruppert Murdoch for his Fox Corporation. Murdoch had no interest in running the team, he was just adding to his entertainment empire.

Fox installed non baseball people in the front office. Fred Claire was still the GM. Fox authorized him to offer Piazza a 6-year, 80-million-dollar deal. Piazza turned the offer down to test free agency. Some members of the team were upset, notably, Brett Butler who stated, ” Piazza is the greatest hitter I have ever been around, but you can’t build around Piazza because he is not a leader.” Tim Kurkjian wrote ” I do not think Piazza was very happy being a Dodger by then. If he was, he would have happily taken that deal. So I think he was ready to move on. I do not blame him for that. I also do not blame the Dodgers, it was time for some new chemistry on that club.” Sounds a lot like some felt he was a cancer in the clubhouse.

To be fair to Mike, the Dodger clubhouse was different by then. Lasorda had a heart attack and was retired in 96. Bill Russell took over the managerial reins and the club was totally different. Russell was no Lasorda. And a few times he had run ins with some of his players.

So, with no contract in place, and with GM Fred Claire completely out of the loop, the Fox guys worked out a trade with the Florida Marlins sending Gary Sheffield, Charles Johnson, Bobby Bonilla, Jim Eisenreich, and Manuel Barrios, to the Dodgers for Piazza and Todd Zeile. This happened on May 18th, 1998. Mike had 9 homers at the time of the trade and a .282 BA. Sheffield, who was the obvious center of players going the Dodgers way, was at .272 with 6 homers. Johnson was supposed to replace Piazza behind the dish with Bonilla replacing Zeile.

Johnson was a superior defender to Piazza, but no way was he the same type of hitter. He was hitting .221 at the time of the trade with 7 homers. Bonilla was on his way down at age 35. Eisenreich and Barrios, who never donned a Dodger uni, were strictly fillers.

So, Piazza headed to Miami. But the Marlins had zero intention of keeping him. They were dumping payroll and cleaning house after their 1997 Championship year. Piazza’s stay in Miami would last exactly 5 games. He never homered in a Marlins uni. On May 22 he was traded to the New York Mets for Preston Wilson, Ed Yarnall and Geoff Goetz. The trade shocked everyone, fans, media and Todd Hundley, the Mets starting catcher who was on the injured list. Mets GM, Steve Phillips had stated he was not interested in trading for Piazza. But team owner, Nelson Doubleday was. And he no doubt had a hand in making it happen.

At that point thought, Dodger fans were furious with Fox for having unloaded one of the fans favorite players. And not many warmed to the idea of a catcher who couldn’t carry Piazza’s bat with a big rig. Sheffield was pleased to leave, but the fans were not that excited about having him. But there was no going back. Johnson would be gone the next season as would Bonilla. Sheffield spent four years in LA. He posted an average over .300, .312, hit 129 homers and set the record for most HRs by a RH hitter until Adrian Beltre hit 48.

Eisenreich suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome and retired after playing 75 games in LA. Piazza in the meantime, energized the Mets team. He made an immediate impact on the field and in the clubhouse. He hit .348 the rest of the season with 23 homers for the Mets finishing with a .328, 32, 111 line. The Mets did not make the playoffs, but their fortunes were turning for the better.

They would go to the playoffs the next two seasons. They lost to the Braves in the NLCS in 1999. Piazza did not hit well in either series and only had one homer. In 2000, they won the NLDS and the NLCS. They then would meet the Yankees in the World Series. Piazza was so so in the NLDS, but hit .414 in the CS against the Cardinals.

Tensions were high between the Yanks and Mets. Roger Clemens had hit Piazza in the head when the two teams had played in July. In game two with Clemens on the mound, Piazza fouled a ball off, and the splintered end of it pinwheeled towards Clemens, as Piazza ran towards first, Clemens threw the end of the bat at him, Piazza pivoted, ran towards Clemens shouting ” what is your problem? ” He got no response and Clemens asked the umpire for a new ball. Piazza grounded out. Clemens later claimed he thought it was the ball. The Mets lost the series in 5 games and Piazza, in his only appearance in the World Series hit .273 with 2 doubles, 2 homers, 4 driven in and scored 3 runs.

While his productivity was not what it was in LA, he continued to be one of the best in the league. He also became embroiled in more than one controversy. The first one was about his sexual orientation, he said he was heterosexual, but that he had no problem being on the same team with a gay teammate. Then he admitted taking androstenedione, which was legal at the time, but later banned by MLB. He said he only took it for a short while and then quit when he saw no change in his muscle mass.

More controversy in 2003 when he learned the team planned to try him at first base in an attempt to move him to a less demanding position. He said he would do what the team felt best, but it was not something he liked. He would end up playing a total of 69 games there for the Mets. 2003 was a down year for him. He played in only 68 games. His game time would diminish as his time as a Met wound down. 120 in 04, and 113 in 05.

On May 5, 2005, Mike homered at Shea against the Giants to pass Carlton Fisk for the most career homers as a catcher. Fisk had 351. Mike would finish with 396 as a catcher and 427 overall. He also got married in January of 2005 to Alicia Rickter, as of 2015 they had three children.

On October 2, 2005, Piazza played his last game as a Met before a near sellout crowd. He was feted with a 5 minute tribute late in the game. He signed a one year deal with the Padres for the 2006 season. It was for 1.25 million. A far cry from the 6/82 he signed with the Mets in 1999. He had decent numbers, .283/22/68. He then moved to the AL, staying on the west coast with the A’s. Appearing in 83 games he hit .275/8/44. After the season, he retired.

Mike had an audience with the pope in 2002. This was very important to him with his strong Roman-Catholic beliefs. After he announced his retirement, he stated that the Mets fans were the best in the world and one of the hardest things he ever had to do was walking off of the field at Shea and saying goodbye.

Throughout most of his career, Mike was considered a defensive liability. But some analysis show him in a different light. Sean Forman of Baseball Reference made a case for him as one of the best for keeping the ball in front of him. In 2013, Max Marchi of Baseball Prospectus said pitch data showed Piazza as one of the best pitch framers of all time. The most telling statistic is that Piazza was the number one catcher for 11 pitching staffs, 10 of which finished in the top five in ERA. Mike Scioscia stated you had to see Mike from the beginning, where he worked so hard to be the catcher he was later on.

He was elected to the Hall on his fourth try garnering 83 percent of the votes. Only Cochrane and Dickey have higher career BA’s. Only Bench and Berra more RBIs. Only Berra and Fisk more hits.

Scully-Piazza Feud

In 2013, Mike Piazza had a new book called “Long Shot” In this book he accused Vin Scully of stirring up Dodger fans against him for his last couple of weeks as a Dodger because he supposedly turned Piazza’s word against him. Piazza had given the Dodgers an ultimatum on his stalled contract talks in 98. He claimed the way the whole contract drama looked to the fan, and they were taking their view from Scully’s statements, was that by setting a deadline and insisting on so much money, he was demonstrating a conspicuous lack of loyalty to the ballclub. Scully was crushing me he said.

All of this was tied to a spring training interview in which Scully asked Piazza about his contract situation. Now, who keeps a record of a spring training interview? Well someone did and the LA Times posted the interview and what was really said. The closest thing to criticize Piazza that Scully said was, ” ultimatum is a heavy word, you know that’s the kind of thing, if you don’t do this, we bomb you.”

Piazza actually gave a solid response to the incredible grilling to which Scully replied, ” well said. So, the city of Angels turned it’s back on Piazza. A few planets away from Scully is crushing me. But he had imposed a Feb 15 deadline. That was later relaxed, but negotiations did not go well during spring training. After a loss on opening day, Piazza was interviewed and his statement is pretty telling.

His statement was this ” I am not going to lie and say I am not concerned about this, that I am not confused and disappointed about the whole thing, because I am. I am mad that this has dragged into the season, and that it now has the potential to become a distraction.

How can I not think about this? If they say they have the intent to sign me, then sign me. But if they don’t have the intent to sign me, just let me know. Just let me know, so at least I’ll be able to start to think about having a future somewhere else after the season. But what they are doing now, the way it is going, I just don’t get it. “

Obviously, Mike was beyond upset. I believe he was pointing a finger at Vin because he just could not understand why the fans turned on him. All that happened in 1998. In 2013 when the book came out, Mike still had not softened his stance that it was Scully who turned the fans against him. For myself, I do not believe Scully would do that to any former player. But Piazza’s ego was bruised and to this day, it has not healed. He turned the team down when they wanted to give him a night and his own bobblehead. Now that Vin is gone, the rift has no chance of being fixed.