by Mike Piazza
The last word on the incident—until now, I guess—came a few days later from my old pal Pedro Martinez, who was quoted in Sports Illustrated saying, “Maybe he had to show off his testosterone. But this may be more embarrassing than the one before. Why do you go after skinny Guillermo Mota in spring training and do nothing to Roger Clemens in the World Series?” I thought he sort of answered his own question there. And for the record, Clemens is listed as six foot four, 205 pounds, Mota at six five, 235.
But I didn’t bring that up when the New York press asked me about Pedro’s remarks. I just wondered aloud what his thoughts might be on the Kennedy assassination, as long as he was offering theories on events he knew practically nothing about.
• • •
For the 2003 season, the Braves lost Tom Glavine and we gained him. After all the moves of 2002, our roster was still shifting. Glavine was a welcome addition, but the best was Cliff Floyd, an outfielder who hit well and got along with everybody. Mo Vaughn was back and the Mets still owed him $32 million for the next two years, so there wasn’t much talk in spring training about moving me to first base. In fact, Art Howe—who could hardly have been more different from Bobby Valentine—made it clear, right off the bat, that I was still the catcher and there was no particular need for me to be taking ground balls, in spite of the fact that our backup, Vance Wilson, was the best in the league at throwing out base stealers. Howe was probably aware that I needed sixteen more homers to catch Carlton Fisk, who had the career record for catchers. Art was a good man.
It was cold, as usual, to start the season, and I was feeling some soreness in my groin to go along with a bone bruise on my knee that I sustained in spring training. Thankfully, we were back in Miami on the second week. Alicia, who was my fiancée by that time, came down and went to the games with my dad.
One night, the dudes sitting in front of them, obviously showing off for their dates, were going on and on about me being gay. According to Alicia, the girls were saying stuff like “Ooh, I’ll take a Piazza with fries,” and the guys were telling them, no, no, his girlfriend’s a beard (a bogus romantic interest intended to deceive people about your actual sexual orientation). One of them said the reason I couldn’t throw so well was that my wrist was too limp. Naturally, my dad was seething and started mumbling things like, “If you think he’s so gay, why don’t you give him ten minutes with your girlfriend?” But Alicia was the one who actually confronted the guys. She tapped one of them on the shoulder and said, “What you’re saying is bullshit. This is Mike’s father, I’m his fiancée, and we’d appreciate it if you’d shut up.” Needless to say, my dad was impressed.
After we left Florida, Father Time persisted in hounding me, making a nuisance of himself. The knee cost me a game after it locked up while I was catching. In St. Louis, I ripped my elbow on some Plexiglas when I slid for a foul ball at the backstop. (I complained to the players association about that one.) In Pittsburgh, I jammed my foot trying to beat out a grounder. My groin was so sore that the trainers began compression-wrapping it. On a routine physical, doctors found and removed a benign mole—they called it “precancerous”—on my lower abdomen and put in six sutures, which caused me to miss three starts. My shoulder was growling because I’d landed on it diving to first base. I had a hip flexor. My wrists bothered me.
My throwing, which had shown significant improvement, suffered more than anything else. Taking note of that and putting it together with the fact that I was closing in on Fisk, my critics arrived at a typical conclusion: I was clinging to the catcher position for the sole purpose of breaking the home run record. Even Todd Zeile, now playing for the Yankees, threw that out there.
The charges carried with them an implication that I was an imposter behind the plate. I disagreed, of course, but was most offended by the suggestion that I would willfully hold back the ball club in the interest of a personal agenda. A player can’t be insulted much more harshly than that.
My deficiencies against base stealers were well documented, and I don’t disavow them, but I strongly suspect that the reputation itself was part of the problem. I’m not saying this to challenge the integrity of the umpires—it’s a human thing—but I had the definite sense that we weren’t going to get the call at second base unless the ball was there waiting for the runner on a perfect peg. On bang-bang plays, I never received the benefit of the doubt. Many times, I felt that if Pudge Rodriguez or Yadier Molina had made the very same throw in the very same scenario, the guy would have been rung up.
Meanwhile, the rest of my catching credentials were roundly neglected. It didn’t seem to count for much that I’d caught two no-hitters and, while calling nearly every single pitch that I received over my career (except for the occasional pitchout ordered from the bench), my catcher’s ERA was 3.81, more than half a run better than the league average. In my eleven full years, the league ERA had never fallen below 4.49. If you look at it that way—and I don’t mean to take credit away from all the very good pitchers I caught—my bottom line, defensively, was considerably better than average. I thought Craig Wright said it kindly, thank you, in his article in the Hardball Times Baseball Annual:
It is pure speculation on my part, but I honestly believe [that Piazza’s] obviously below-average throwing arm actually helped his development as a catcher. I’ve seen more than a few catchers with good throwing arms who put too much focus on the aspect of defense they are good at—stopping the running game. In steal situations they’ll tend to call a good pitch to throw on rather than a good pitch to get the batter out, and some will let the finer nuances of catching slide because they are already perceived as being good catchers simply because they throw well. Piazza knew he didn’t throw well and would always be limited in his ability to contain the running game. I believe that drove him to learn the skills of catching that have nothing to do with arm strength. And it paid off. He knew what he was doing back there. Pitchers liked working with him; they were successful, and Piazza was a part of it. . . . Piazza was the #1 catcher for eleven pitching staffs and 10 of the 11 finished in the top five in ERA.
It is reasonable to estimate that in the career sample of matched plate appearances of Mike Piazza [comparing the statistics of pitchers when they threw to him with their numbers when they teamed with other catchers], that through his work with the pitchers in stopping the hitters, that he prevented 344 base runners and helped pick up 265 more outs. And if we assume quite reasonably that his influence was approximately at that level for all the plate appearances that Piazza was behind the plate in his career, it becomes 758 base runners and 584 outs for his career. That’s a lot of defensive value, and those positives are far, far more valuable than the negative of what was surrendered to the opposition’s running game by his weak arm.
In early 2012, speaking to the same theme, a new study presented in Baseball Prospectus rated the top catchers since 1948 in the telling category of preventing runs. The author, Max Marchi, ranked me third over that sixty-four-year period (actually tied with Javy Lopez, who appeared in fewer games), behind Tony Pena and my predecessor with the Dodgers, Mike Scioscia. I was credited with a defensive contribution of 205 runs prevented, fourteen more than Fisk. “The first thing that will probably strike you,” wrote Marchi, “is Mike Piazza’s ranking. Piazza has always been considered a poor defensive catcher because of his inability to throw out basestealers. However, he fared well at avoiding passed balls and wild pitches (as Tom Tango showed in With or Without You in The Hardball Times Annual 2008) and now emerges as one of the best ever at handling the pitching staff.”
The case against my catching received a boost when Tom Glavine was quoted by anonymous sources as saying that he didn’t want to pitch to me. He denied it vehemently, but that doesn’t always work in New York—especially when there’s circumstantial evidence to the contrary.
It was no secret that the two of us weren’t always tuned in to the same station. As an example: Shea had been one of the first stadiums equippe
d with the QuesTec system for critiquing ball-and-strike calls, and Glavine thought the umpires were squeezing him out of fear that they’d grade poorly if they didn’t. After facing him for so many years when he was with the Braves, we all knew damn well that he made his living on the corners—or, rather, just off them. So I guess I wasn’t too tolerant of his point of view. On one occasion, when he was complaining about the calls, I said, “Dude, so you gotta throw the ball over the plate!” I’m sure he wished he was still working with Javy Lopez. As it turned out, Glavine was 3–9 at Shea that year and 6–5 everywhere else; so you can see where he was coming from.
At any rate, I certainly respected his professionalism, and for the most part we managed to get along well enough, I thought. He’s Catholic, and we often went to church together on the road. Frankly, I was a little surprised when Glavine later took a backhanded swipe at me in his book Home of the Brave, implying that he’d grown up with a lot less privilege than I had. I thought I’d gotten past all that.
• • •
Mo Vaughn’s career ended suddenly on the second day of May—bone spurs in his arthritic knee. When it did, I figured that I might start seeing some action at first base.
I didn’t figure, however, that the Mets would tell the press about it before they told me. Steve Phillips mentioned it in a media scrum on the field before a ball game, and Howe alluded to it in a television interview that was widely publicized. I felt a little idiotic, and not a bit pleased, when reporters asked me about the new arrangement, assuming I knew.
When I finally talked to Howe, he assured me that they’d break me in gradually, after I’d had a chance to work out at first for a while. In the meantime, Jason Phillips, a rookie who had come up as a catcher, took on most of the duties there. That was a relief, at least.
But it didn’t pacify me; and once again, playing angry brought out my best at the plate. Two days after the awkward announcement, in an afternoon game following a night game—Mo Vaughn bobblehead day—I hit a two-run, tenth-inning, walk-off homer to beat the Padres. That got me going on a six-game tear in which I was eleven for twenty-three, as hot as I’d been in some time.
On the rare occasions when I would get on a roll like that, I’d step into the batter’s box, turn to the pitcher, and actually feel in my hands that I was going to hit the ball hard. Most hitters would tell you roughly the same thing. It’s almost like a spiritual experience, a Zen thing. There’s a sort of music to it. The year before, there was a similar stretch when I was feeling it, and every time I settled into my stance, Led Zeppelin’s song “No Quarter” would be playing in my head. Bartolo Colon might be cutting his slider loose, the stadium could be howling, and all I’d hear was Robert Plant: They ask no quarter. The dogs of doom are howling more! At times like that, you’re so calm, relaxed, and confident that there’s not a shred of fear, doubt, or negativity in your system. Other times, you stand up there and it’s like, oh man, how am I going to do this? You’ve got to somehow scratch and scramble just to get back to the basics. It’s all based on confidence, and confidence is based, in large part, on prior results, which is why streaks happen. Sometimes a hitter can even detect a lack of confidence in a pitcher, and feed on that. It’s a short step from confidence to intimidation. When a hitter knows he has intimidated a pitcher, the battle is largely won.
In mid-May 2003, I had arrived at that point. Over a three-game series in Colorado, I went seven for eleven with three home runs, which left me only nine behind Fisk. The next day, I picked up two more hits in San Francisco. My batting average was suddenly up to .336, and the way I was seeing the ball, I was pretty confident that, if I could hold it together physically, I was going to put up one of my best seasons. I was still aching all over, but that can be disregarded when you’re raking like I was—especially when your team is on the ropes; we were already a dozen games behind the Braves.
On the second day of the Giants series, May 16, I took my first practice session at first base. Then, top of the first inning, I came to the plate against Jason Schmidt, feeling indomitable, and promptly fell behind in the count. At one and two, I was guessing a slider away—a strikeout pitch—but instead, the ball came directly at my neck. I jumped back to get out of its path and suddenly it felt like somebody was holding a blowtorch to my right groin. It was a crazy, overwhelming jolt of pain. I hopped on my left leg a time or two, went down hard, and actually couldn’t breathe for a few moments.
The injury is called an avulsion. It might as well be called a gunshot. There are four abductors attached to your groin, and when one of those pulls away, you won’t be dunking, dancing, walking your dog, or swinging a baseball bat anytime soon. I’m guessing that the stitches—the ones put in when I had a mole removed from my abdomen—had something to do with what happened, because the area was still tender. It’s entirely possible that my weight training contributed, as well, which is part of the reason why it was discouraged for so long in baseball. At any rate, the strain was a grade 3, the worst kind. I couldn’t even undress; they had to cut off my uniform pants. I left Pacific Bell Park in a wheelchair. When I went in the next day for an MRI, my leg was purple all the way down to my knee.
What hurt most, though, was the fact that I’d been crushing the ball. To be so hot and get stopped so cold . . . it made me feel beaten. I’d never planned to succumb to the line of thought that catchers start to break down after a certain age; but there I was.
The team arranged for me to rehab with Lisa Kearns from SportFit in Coral Gables, Florida. It was nearly a month before I could even exercise. I more or less knew what to expect, because the same thing had happened to my dad a few years before when we were playing golf. He took a swing and just crumpled to the ground. I thought he’d tripped, and I started to laugh until I realized what kind of pain he was in. But my dad could still sell cars with a groin strain. All I could do was train carefully and watch news reports about the war in Iraq. My days were devoted to the underwater treadmill and the BBC.
Even when I got back to New York, I was as far from catching as the Mets were from catching the Braves. Alicia was there with me, and one night, when we were walking to dinner, I had to make it up some stairs. I guess I didn’t look so good doing it, because a guy watching me shook his head and said, “Man, your shit is fucked up.” It was a depressing period, exacerbated by the knowledge that when I returned—and even that wasn’t certain—it would be to a last-place team.
The Mets were playing badly enough to get Steve Phillips fired as general manager (replaced by Jim Duquette). Still, it was hard to blame the GM for the depletion of our high-priced starting lineup. On top of Vaughn and me, injuries had also claimed Alomar and Burnitz, who was having an excellent year. It was grim. All of a sudden, the prospect of playing baseball just wasn’t as compelling as it had always been. At the same time, though, I was determined to get back on the field in 2003, even if it was just for a week or month. I never wanted to end a season on the disabled list.
To my mounting discouragement, the calendar kept turning. When I was still hobbled after the all-star break, I sat down next to Cliff Floyd, all pitiful, and said, “Dude, I got nothin’ right now.” Cliff—what a great teammate—told me, “Don’t stress, man. Don’t mess yourself up. Get your shit right and come back when you’re ready.”
Finally, on August 13, after I had grumbled through seventy-six games of misery and restlessness, Howe penciled me into the three-hole against the Giants, ironically, at Shea Stadium. A rookie pitcher named Jerome Williams was working for San Francisco, and it was the first time I’d ever played with our rookie shortstop, Jose Reyes, whose speed and talent were downright astonishing. Reyes had come up in June and won a few games almost single-handedly. One night, when he was beating some team or another with his bat, his legs, his glove, everything, David Weathers and I looked at each other and I said something like, “Who is this guy?”
Against Jerome Williams, Reyes led off the bottom of the third with a bunt single and
then stole second. I was the next batter and somehow caught one well enough to get it out of the park. I finished the night with five RBIs. It felt good.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep it going. After the adrenaline rush of getting back on the field, it didn’t take long to realize that I just wasn’t myself, psychologically. I’d lost that feeling of invincibility. My personal myths had been shattered. The doubts had taken root. I was no longer able to clear my mind of the questions and fears that can hold an athlete back, and inevitably do.
For obvious reasons, my groin injury had postponed the first-base experiment. I’d been restored to my customary position, but with the self-awareness, this time, that I couldn’t catch 140 games a year anymore and probably never should have. A catcher needs some days off. In my years with the Dodgers, Joe Ferguson used to remind Tommy now and then that I was due for a blow, but Tommy would just tell him that November will come around soon enough. And I was with him all the way—I didn’t want him to sit me down. It was a point of pride. Or stubbornness. With Bobby and the Mets, the program was pretty much the same.
Without a doubt, though, the innings had taken their toll. Three months on the disabled list had brought it all home. The irony is that, if I hadn’t hit so well for those first ten years, I likely would have stayed longer at the top of my game because I’d have been afforded more rest. That said, I’m not willing to return any of the extra hits or home runs that came from being in the lineup every day. And I surely wouldn’t have wanted to take any longer to catch Carlton Fisk.
When we went to Atlanta near the end of August, I drew within four of the record by reaching Shane Reynolds and Greg Maddux on consecutive nights. (Fisk’s record was 351, and I actually had 358 homers altogether, but eleven of mine had come as a DH or pinch-hitter.) The second of those was the eleventh and last home run I would hit that year.