Long Shot

by Mike Piazza

  In a hard-to-explain, total-picture sort of way—probably because of all that happened in those times, or maybe just because I’m an easterner—my years in New York represent real life to me. To that extent, the chief connection I felt was actually more with the fans and the city than the franchise itself, especially when my days as a Met were winding down. Two things, I believe, bonded me to Mets fans. The first was choosing to sign with the ball club after I was relentlessly booed in 1998. The main reason the people had given me a hard time in the first place was that they didn’t believe I was committed to the organization. When they found out I was, it changed everything. The second factor was 9/11. It was a shared and profound experience, the kind that people can only get through together. Everyone suffered, and grew closer for it. That was still evident at the ten-year anniversary in 2011, held at Citi Field.

  The anniversary was especially poignant. I caught the first pitch from Johnny Franco, with the infield ringed by first responders, representatives of Tuesday’s Children (an organization dedicated to helping people affected by 9/11), and former teammates. It was a gratifying example of how, even after I’d left New York, Mets fans embraced me as one of their own. It didn’t turn out that way in Los Angeles.

  It’s unfortunate that my relationship with the Dodgers had to end like it did. I wish I could look back on my first team and feel about it the way Carlton Fisk felt about his. He chose to go into the Hall of Fame wearing a Boston cap, even after the Red Sox cast him off. When his contract expired, they never even made an offer to keep him. Fisk eventually played longer with the White Sox, and had some of his better years in Chicago—I, for one, identify him more with the White Sox than the Red Sox—but when he retired, his heart was still with the franchise that brought him to the big leagues. Of course, my circumstances were a little different. Carlton turned thirty, played in the World Series, and went to most of his all-star games before changing colors. I did all of that with my third organization. Also, having grown up in New England, his feeling for Boston is obviously a little different, by nature, than mine is for Los Angeles. Even so, I can’t say that I fully understand his decision. I don’t have that inside me.

  I’d rather pull a Catfish Hunter. On his Hall of Fame plaque, the hat is blank, generic. To me, that’s gutsy. That’s integrity. If the Hall came to me and said, “We want you to go in as a Dodger,” I’d say, “Well, then I’ll go in as nothing.” I just wouldn’t feel comfortable with LA stamped on my head for all of eternity.

  Nah, if I’m fortunate enough to go to Cooperstown, it needs to be with New York of the National League. Seaver could use some company, anyhow.

  • • •

  Before Omar Minaya was fired as general manager of the Mets, he offered me an unspecified, whatever-you-want-to-do kind of job with the organization, which is sometimes code for “roving minor-league instructor,” though not necessarily. It was a nice gesture, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do, or even if I wanted to do it in baseball. I was enjoying other things for a change. I wasn’t ready.

  A year or two later, when I was working with the Italian team in Florida and the Wilpons were being hammered for their ties to Bernie Madoff, the Mets asked me if I’d talk to the press and make a nice remark or two about their owners. I was happy to do that, but, as is so often the case with New York media, the subject turned. I was asked if I had any interest in buying into the ball club myself or had made any inquiries along those lines. I said that I’d discussed it only vaguely, through conversations with people who weren’t really involved. Around the same time, Dan Lozano had actually reached out to Frank McCourt about me becoming a party in the ownership of the Dodgers—yes, the Dodgers—but McCourt was preoccupied with his public spectacle of a divorce and its implications for the franchise. At any rate, I’m still not sure if I’m ready to get back into baseball—or whether I ever will be, for that matter. I have a lifelong tendency to move on.

  Since I left Phoenixville, for instance, I haven’t really kept up with it. When I visit home, several times a year, it’s to Valley Forge, which is nearby but not the same. The fact is, I don’t have much of a relationship anymore with the place where I grew up. For the most part, that’s on me. I’ve never been one to try to organize a legacy for myself on the way out, or after the fact. In the case of Phoenixville, there were also some family situations that factored in. My brother Tony quit the high school baseball team. My brother Tommy moved down to Florida, close to me, for his senior year. My dad felt that local organizations expected him to subsidize their projects. And so on. Through it all, feelings have been hurt. In 2008, I was inducted into the inaugural class of the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame, along with Andre Thornton, former football coach Dick Vermeil, and former Mets pitcher Jon Matlack, among others; but that wasn’t a Phoenixville thing. Understanding the disconnect between me and my hometown, and hopeful of repairing it, Doc Kennedy, my old high school coach, arranged a little ceremony last spring in which my number 13 was retired and hung on the fence of the baseball field. A bunch of former teammates, including Mike Fuga and Joe Pizzica, were on hand, and Doc’s number was retired at the same time. A couple thousand people showed up. It felt good. Afterward, I joined Vince, my mom and dad, and most of the old Phantoms for pizza and beer at the Polish Club.

  On the broader scale, I fully realize that I’ve alienated plenty of people over the years. Especially in New York, where I felt an enormous amount of pressure to earn my salary, silence my critics, and carry the Mets to the playoffs, I simply wasn’t the guy who was going to come to your bake sale. Alicia thought I became a different person every time I set foot in the city—edgy, more intense. But I can’t blame it all on New York. I’ve been a brat on a fairly regular basis.

  Looking back, I wish I’d been able to loosen up a little. I wish I’d had more fun playing the game. Al Leiter used to ask me, “When are you going to enjoy this shit?” I never really did. That’s the principal regret I have about my career. Poetically, I guess, that happens to be Mike Schmidt’s main regret, as well. He said it straight-out in an interview with Tim McCarver. Funny how that works.

  In the clarity that comes with retirement, I understand that, as a player, I was too moody, too brooding, too consumed, too unlikable. I wasn’t really interested in being likable. I somehow felt that, if I tried to be everybody’s best friend, my guard would be down. It would betray weakness. My persona was: to hell with all this other shit; I’m here to play ball. It was an attitude that drove me. I wanted to be the Mike Schmidt that I watched from my box seat on the third-base line. I wanted to be the Ted Williams that I read so much about and met in my backyard. I wanted to be as cool as Joe DiMaggio, who, you might say, was beloved in spite of himself. Those were the guys whose style appealed to me and set a standard. Aloof, a little surly, all business. Reluctant stars. Or so it seemed.

  It worked for me, but not without contradictions. For much of my career, I suppressed my spiritual side. I also made myself less approachable than I intended to. Only after the fact—the exercise of writing this book has helped, I think—have I come to terms with my desire and need to touch people. I aspire, now, not only to inspire but to be somebody you’d like to hang out and have a beer with.

  I was that guy, at least to a partial extent, when I lived with Eric Karros in Manhattan Beach. Eric had it right when he said we were “just a couple of jackoff ballplayers” in those days. It was a great time in my life, and it felt like it would never end. Then came the contract negotiations. Like my summer at Vero Beach eight years before, they educated and permanently changed me.

  Americans are kind of funny about athletes and contracts. We’re all for the spirit and principles of capitalism and everyone’s opportunity to make of themselves what they will . . . but only up to a point. For some odd reason, this seems to apply more to baseball than practically any other occupation or pastime. A ballplayer exceeds the general public’s comfort level—tests its good graces—when he makes too mu
ch money, whatever that number is. In Los Angeles, in particular, I felt like the poster boy for that phenomenon.

  Before I battled the Dodgers over dollars and terms, I was regarded, publicly, as relatively charmed and not too bad a dude, an L.A. kind of guy. By the time they traded me, though, I had, by negotiating unsentimentally—from what I perceived as a position of strength—depleted my popularity and polarized the fan base.

  Even now, though, I can’t apologize for driving a hard bargain, for wanting to cash in that great big chip on my shoulder. I couldn’t suddenly lose the attitude just because it was contract time. That attitude was indispensable to what I’d become. It was my functioning baseball ego. If I’d considered myself lucky to be there, I wouldn’t have been there.

  Through stubborn pride and grim single-mindedness, I was able, ultimately, to accomplish more in baseball than anyone ever thought I would; and I would find it gratifying if that were remembered as my contribution to the game and the culture; if the tough crowd that we’ve become could still find a place in its heart to be inspired by an old-fashioned, American-style success story.

  From where I sit, that’s what mine amounts to.

  My father, Vince, with his mom, Elizabeth, the daughter of Italian immigrants. Dad would take us to her house on Sunday afternoons—especially if the weather was nice—then he’d drop off my brothers and haul me out to a ball field for batting practice.

  My mother, Veronica—everybody calls her Roni—was a nurse before she met my father. While Dad groomed me to hit a baseball, Mom took care of most everything else, seeing to it that I, like my brothers, was steeped in conservative Catholic values.

  We got our season tickets at Veterans Stadium in 1976, and our seats were perfectly located along the third-base line, where I could study the movements of my hero, Mike Schmidt. He was my inspiration and role model. My brother Vince (left) and I had our picture taken with him that year on Fan Appreciation Day.

  In 1977, the Dodgers clinched the National League pennant in Philadelphia. Tommy Lasorda arranged for Vince (left) and me to come down to the clubhouse for the postgame celebration. We became a part of it when Dusty Baker lifted us up to share the moment.

  When you’re ten years old—Vince was eleven (I was always bigger)—and your dad is a good friend of Tommy Lasorda, you get a Dodger uniform for Christmas.

  In the basement of our house in Phoenixville, my father propped a mattress against the wall so I could hit and throw baseballs into it. He had plenty of gimmicks, and most of them worked.

  When I was twelve, I was the Dodgers’ batboy whenever they came to Veterans Stadium. My brothers Danny (left) and Vince got to hang around. I was beginning to realize the advantages that knowing Lasorda would provide me.

  By the time I was sixteen, I was a serious student of the Ted Williams approach to hitting. I’d read his book countless times. So I felt like the luckiest kid on the planet when Williams, at the suggestion of local scout Eddie Liberatore, actually came out to our house in Phoenixville to watch me hit in the batting cage that my dad had built in the backyard. “I don’t think I hit the ball as good as he does when I was sixteen,” Williams said. “I’m not shittin’ ya.”

  My brothers help me celebrate my birthday at our new home in Valley Forge. Front: Dan, me, and Tommy (who is officially Lasorda’s godson). Back: Tony and Vince.

  As a freshman at the University of Miami, I was known by my teammates as the best five o’clock hitter in the country. That meant I crushed the ball in batting practice, but games were a different story. After one year I transferred to Miami-Dade North, a community college.

  After being called up to the Dodgers at the end of the 1992 season, I played for the Sun Cities Solar Sox in the inaugural year of the Arizona Fall League. It was there that I experienced my first big-league heartbreak.

  Eric Karros (left), my best friend in the game and the guy who showed me the ropes in Los Angeles, started a string of five straight Rookie of the Year awards for the Dodgers, from 1992 to 1996. I was second in line and Raul Mondesi (center) followed me. Then came Hideo Nomo and Todd Hollandsworth. (© Ken Davidoff/www.oldrockphoto.com)

  After winning the Rookie of the Year award in 1993, I was honored at a restaurant in Philadelphia. Curt Schilling and Bobby Bonilla spoke, and my grandmother Mary Horenci, my mom’s mom, took in the festivities.

  It’s hard to imagine a pair of brothers more devoted to each other than Pedro (left) and Ramon Martinez. Pedro and I joined the Dodgers in September 1992, and both Martinezes were devastated when the club traded him after the 1993 season. I caught Ramon’s no-hitter in 1995, but he and I frequently clashed, which meant that Pedro and I had our problems as well. (© Focus on Sport/Getty Images)

  I’m getting ready to catch Tom Candiotti. You can tell because I’m wearing my knuckleball mitt. Another clue is the look on my face, like I’m thinking hard about something, probably how I can get him to throw fastballs. (© Otto Greule/Allsport/Getty Images)

  For the record, Tommy Lasorda was not my godfather. But he was a godsend to me, collaborating with his friend my father to chart my course to the Dodgers, where he was my manager and biggest advocate. This scene is from August 1997, the day the Dodgers retired Tommy’s jersey. Less than a year later, our relationship was complicated by my trade to the Florida Marlins. (© AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

  My predecessor, Mike Scioscia, caught nearly 1,400 games for the Dodgers and was greatly respected by his teammates. Knowing that I was ticketed to take his job, Scioscia nevertheless helped me in any way he could. (© Rich Pilling/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

  Catching Hideo Nomo’s no-hitter in 1996 was one of the highlights of my career. In spite of a slippery mound at Coors Field, his forkball was unhittable that night. A game like that is a catcher’s dream. My high regard for Nomo made it even sweeter. (© AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

  At the ballpark in which I practically grew up—Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia—I caught the ceremonial first pitch of the 1996 All-Star Game from my boyhood idol, Mike Schmidt. Then I homered, doubled, and won the MVP trophy as we beat the American League, 6–0. Afterward, I told the media that the award was a tribute to my father, who was very much in his glory that night. (© Al Bello/Allsport/Getty Images)

  Al Leiter (left) came through with one of the best clutch pitching performances I ever caught when he shut out the Reds in our sudden-death game in Cincinnati in 1999, sending us into the playoffs. He also rose to the occasion in his showdowns with Roger Clemens and the Yankees. Todd Zeile (center) joined me in the gigantic trade from the Dodgers to the Marlins in 1998. We were reunited with the Mets in 2000, and again with the Mets in 2004. (© Barry Talesnick/Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS.com/Newscom.com)

  When I came to bat against Roger Clemens in the second inning of a game at Yankee Stadium on July 8, 2000, I was seven for twelve against him in my career, including home runs in our three previous encounters, the most recent a grand slam. On an 0–1 count, Clemens hit me in the head with a fastball. (© Bernie Nunez/REUTERS/Landov)

  I was very fortunate to come away with only a minor concussion. That’s our trainer, Fred Hina, attending to me while our manager, Bobby Valentine (no. 2), looks on anxiously. Talking to reporters after the game, I shared my opinion that Clemens had purposely thrown at my head. (© Bernie Nunez/REUTERS/Landov)

  After Clemens beaned me, the next time we faced off was in that year’s World Series, game two at Yankee Stadium. In the first inning, he jammed me with a two-strike fastball, and the bat blew into three pieces. I wasn’t sure where the ball was (it was well foul, in the direction of the Yankees’ dugout), so, with the fractured handle in my hand, I started toward first base. Meanwhile, the splintered barrel bounced Roger’s way. He picked it up and fired it at my feet. I didn’t even see it coming. Confused, I turned toward the mound, ready to throw a punch, and asked Roger what his problem was. He said he thought the bat was the ball. That wasn’t what I was expecting to hear and it stopped me cold. The
heavyweight fight that everybody seemed to be lusting for never happened. (Top left: © AP Photo/Mark Lennihan; top right: © Peter Morgan/REUTERS/Landov; bottom left: © Matt Campbell/AFP/Getty Images; bottom right: © New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

  Ten days after 9/11, we played the first baseball game in New York City since the devastation at the Twin Towers. The Atlanta Braves led 2–1 in the eighth inning when, with Desi Relaford pinch-running at first base for Edgardo Alfonzo, I sent a fastball from Steve Karsay over the center-field fence. The whole stadium seemed to be rocking back and forth in a giant group hug as we held on to win, 3–2. It was the most emotion, and the most gratification, I’ve ever experienced on a playing field. That poignant night proved to me that baseball is far more than just a game. (© New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

  Playing for Bobby Valentine was an adventure unto itself. There were not many dull moments. Bobby would tick me off on a regular basis and just as often leave me shaking my head—I had plenty of company in that respect—but I considered him an excellent manager nevertheless. I’ll say this: he could make you smile. In a lot of ways, he reminded me of his mentor and mine, Tommy Lasorda. (© Doug Kanter/AFP/Getty Images)