Memories of Mike Piazza
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- May
- 21
Quick story on Mike Piazza:
When I covered the Mets, Piazza was a fun guy to watch take batting practice in spring training. Fresh off the winter and his knees feeling good, he would launch balls to the moon with that sweet right-handed swing.
During the week before the rest of the position players would report, Piazza would get extra time in the cage with the rest of the catchers. He would stand in there for 45 minutes, chatting away with the reporters who covered the team while taking his hacks.
As he talked about politics, music or some book that he read, Piazza would be crushing the ball.
“Dude, there should be a third political party in America …”
Crack!
“There used to be the Whigs, they should come back …”
Crack!
“Do you think Slash is the best heavy metal guitar player? …”
Crack!
This would go on for a while. It was fascinating to watch as he hammered pitches the other way, 450, 500 feet.
Piazza got a lot of grief for his throwing. But he was an excellent receiver and never, ever blew a pop-up. He also knew how to call a game because he was such a good hitter himself.
In Piazza and Jorge Posada, it has been great to cover two of the best-hitting catchers ever. Totally different people who both take pride in the same tough job.
Here’s hoping Mike has an enjoyable retirement.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 2:24 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
who cares about mike piazza, this is the yankees blogs dude not the mets.
this is Pete’s blog, relax.
Good luck with Piazza. Pete, any more updates with Posada? Or even Jeter?
lmfao @ 12345.
I guess Pete could write an article about how the entire offense came back to life now that A-Rod is back in the line-up.
Oh wait, that didn’t happen? Silly me…
good post, thanks
12345, Pete can cover baseball in general as well as the Yankees. It’s his blog, so if you don’t like it, don’t read it.
Great post Peter.
I always enjoyed watching Piazza bat. That guy was amazing at the plate and it is sad to hear that he is finally hanging up the spikes after an sure HOF career.
I trust he’ll enjoy it.
Take care Mike.
12345,
Listen to Matt. And by the way, Piazza is a Dodger and a great ballplayer. Giving him homage is proper.
Sit on it.
Who cares abt Piazza. What’s the update on Jeter. Is he going to play today?
Who cares about Jeter? He has two home runs and one stolen base, and he’s a lousy fielder.
Piazza in the hall of fame?
on juice?
I liked watching espn yesterday when they said that Piazza was not as bad defensivley as some think. At the same time they were saying that someone stole a base.
memo to espn. Piazza sucked behind the plate. No getting around it.
who cares, he is one of the best hitting catchers, if not THE best hitting catcher ever.
as painful as the truth might be about Jeter, that actually made me laugh.
I was at the game when Clemens drilled Piazza in the head. We had really good seats, basically behind the plate on the loge level (right next to the owner’s box behind the TV camera stand). Anyway, that was the LOUDEST sound I’ve ever heard in a ball game. Louder than any HR crack of the bat….anything. It was nasty.
It is so comical when people try to tell Pete what to post on his blog. People are so quick to tell others what to do and think yet if you were to do that to them, they’d have a hissy fit.
I’ve posted 3500 plus times to this blog over the years and 99 percent of them are about the Yankees.
The one time a month it’s not, some idiot invariably says “write about the Yankees.”
Right, obviously we should ignore all other baseball news, no matter how significant or whether I have a unique perspective on it.
I agree with bringing the Whigs back
Pete,
If the 1 percent is about a retired Met vs. your Patriots. Ill pick Mets talk all day long.
Colts 09
With the way the yankees have been playing, I’d welcome a post about anything remotely positive.
And Mike Piazza is Yankee related, he was one of their greatest nemesis this decade.
Thanks for the post Pete. On a day like today, I welcome any baseball news that isn’t “oh, how the Yankees stink.”
OK Peter –
I am in no way a fan of todays’ music, I don’t care what you have on an IPod, hate Springsteen, yawn on Piazza, and I don’t follow the Patriots!
But I have enjoyed most of the other 3500 posts you’ve made.
Keep on going man, it’s great!
God forbid we talk about a future HOFer retiring.
Let’s get back to wallowing in depression over how stinking awful this Yankee team is.
In fairness to 12345 just as Pete is ‘allowed’ to write anything he wants on his blog; he allows for readers to give their feedback by letting us post.
Slash is good, but he’s no Dime.
No worries Pete. All you’re baseball posts are appreciated.
Pete, nice post on Piazza, that’s the inside stuff that only beat writers like you can experience.
To fellow Yankee fans –
As for the sad state of the Yanks, remember there’s always 18-1* to bring back a smile =)
from the last post;
“I’m all in favor of the team taking care of matters that need to be taken care of. But that doesn’t mean every HBP is a call to arms”
peter-
by the same token it doesn’t mean that never is a hit batter a call to arms. i didn’t like the way that ball ran in on jeter. cabrera is not good enough to go up and in to that location with a pitch that runs in on righties.
i’d drill someone on the orioles just to send that message to cabrera.
Piazza sounds like a nice guy, but he’s not American history scholar.
The Whigs were not a third party. They were a forerunner of the GOP.
Then again, I can’t hit a ball 500 feet. 500 cm, maybe.
Scorpio,
Never thought a number can make me smile ear to ear like 18-1. God thats gotta hurt.
I think it should be against the law to criticize Derek Jeter. Especially after all he has done for us. It should be a hate crime.
Maybe our new Governor can work on this.
S.o.S,
I know!!! I still have the game on my Tivo.
http://thesportshernia.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/joba-chamberlai.html
hilarity!
My Mike Piazza story….
Many years ago, he came to the University of Miami to try out and walk onto the baseball team.
He was a skinny kid. He worked out for a few days, played ok, but didn’t make the cut.
Ron Fraser, the coach at the time, got him into Miami-Dade North (a JC) and the rest, as they say, is history.
He was drafted in the late rounds of the draft, as a favor to Tommy LaSorda, and he’s a first ballot Hall of Famer. Amazing.
At the time of his tryouts, there was also a skinny kid who would hang out at Mark Light Stadium (UM’s home field) to take BP, field groundballs, and wait for his mom to pick him up after work.
His name? Alex Rodriquez.
Scorpio,
Being a Colts fan. Im will never root against the Giants for as long as i live. Unless offcoarse we meet in the Super Bowl. Im forever in debted. Thank you G-MEN!
Yankees GM Michael Kay is saying while Karstens is in AAA he doesn’t understand why they are considering bringing Karstens up if Kennedy doesn’t pan out, why the heck is Karstens being brought up why not Horne or Marquez
SJ,
I heard that Piazza played in a Mexican League at one time trying to come up to the minors. Any truth to that?
“I still have the game on my Tivo.”
haha. and i thought i was the only one…
GO JETS!!!
runs away
“I still have the game on my Tivo.â€
I have it on my Ipod, so I can watch it while bored at work.
I have memories too, of Jorge Posada being our catcher…. I miss those days.
HIP HIP!!
Piazza is obviously a first ballot Hall of Famer but do you guys think Posada has a chance of making it into the Hall?
Are you guys gonna get the 5 game set?
New York Giants – The Road to Super Bowl XLII
It has:
-The last game vs. the Pats
-All the Playoff games( vs. TB, Cowboys, Packers)
-The Superbowl
And it’s the entire games. I can’t wait to get it.
SJ, I like your story so much better than Pete’s! That’s amazing. (no offense Pete)
Unless the G-Men pull a repeat that SB game ain’t coming off my Tivo for the forseeable future. So happy to know that so many Yankee fans think alike =)
“I’ve posted 3500 plus times to this blog over the years and 99 percent of them are about the Yankees.
The one time a month it’s not, some idiot invariably says “write about the Yankees.â€
Right, obviously we should ignore all other baseball news, no matter how significant or whether I have a unique perspective on it.”
– Forgive them Pete, Yankee fans don’t have much to be happy about nowadays, hence the frustration.
What a beautiful day, is it not?
“sweet swing?”
It looked like a broken dog tail caught in a tornado
I saw a surprising Piazza stat a few years back. He was graded as having saved something like 50 runs above average due to the way he blocked pitches in the dirt. That ranked him as #1, and took some of the edge off his poor caught stealing percentage.
Easily the greatest hitting catcher ever, besides being the position HR leader (in far fewer PAs than Fisk), Piazza leads all catchers with an OPS+ of 142, (Berra 125, Bench 126, Fisk 117, Pudge 111, Campanella 124) despite staying at catcher longer than any other great hitting catcher other than Berra, Bench, and Fisk (Piazza caught 1629 games to Berra’s 1699 and Bench’s 1742, while Fisk caught 2226). Piazza’s RC/G (runs created per game, or what a lineup of 9 Piazzas would have produced) was 7.3 (Berra 6.0, Bench 5.6, Fisk 5.5, Pudge 5.4, Canpanella 6.2).
Although a Yankee fan, I would always tune in to watch Mike hit. It was a thrill to see a guy who could hit .330 while playing behind the plate, and who could hit a ball 475 feet at any moment.
I was at that wild 9-8 Mets win over the Yankees back about 10 years ago, and I saw Piazza hit a 483-ft. HR off Ramiro Mendoza that almost flew over the picnic tent. Truly an awesome shot.
“Piazza is obviously a first ballot Hall of Famer but do you guys think Posada has a chance of making it into the Hall?”
As an offensive catcher, Jorge’s not close to Piazza’s class. Nobody is really. However, Posada’s numbers work pretty favorably when measured against other HOF catchers. If he has typical “Posada” seasons for the balance of his contract (read: .280 or so, 20-22 homer, 80-90 RBI, .850+ OPS) he’s got a very good shot.
Piss poor postseason history and the fact that he was never much more than an average catcher defensively work against him, but the overall body of work puts him very much in the neighborhood.
”...Uffizi Museum. It includes an exact replica of the statue of David (which is kept inside).”
Typical Brian (Red Sox fan) passive/aggressive propaganda.
Everyone knows the David isn’t in the Uffizi, it’s in the Gallery of the Accademia. How stupid do you think we are, Brian??? Sheesh.
Also, yes, the Whig Party’s remnants were part of the foundation of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln was a member of both the Illinois House of Representatives and the U.S. House as a member of the Whig Party. He joined the new Republican Party in the 1850’s.
There’s a song by the indie pop band Belle & Sebastian called “Piazza, New York Catcher”—the only mention of him in the song is in this line “Piazza, New York catcher, are you straight or are you gay?” , a reference to the “I’m not gay!” NY Post headline of a few years ago.
Randy l., I recommended a great restaurant in Florence to young Rebecca in a thread yesterday. It’s called Trattoria Sostanza, I can give you more info about it if you’d lile.
I agree that Piazza always seemed to me outstanding in the catching skills other than throwing out baserunners—blocking balls in the dirt, catching pop-ups, handling the pitching staff, and calling games. IMO these are decidedly the more important skills, particularly in Piazza’s era. A catcher’s “gun” is far overrated.
He was amazing to watch at bat. His swing seemed to be pure arm strength; he barely moved his legs.
That said, considering his inauspicious beginnings, what seriously is the likelihood he used steroids?
Loved Piazza’s swing- it looked like it was all upper body and zero lower- probably one of the best things to watch was him hitting opposite field homeruns. My only regret on Mike was that he didn’t go after Clemens during the bat throwing incident. Despite his years as a Yank, I never liked Clemens, always thought he was a jerk and wished for the day when someone would put the big bully in his place. Unfortunately the person who put the big bully in his place was George Mitchell. Where does that rank? Above or below brining peace to Northern Ireland?
Wow- cc and I must have been in some parallel dimension/universe when talking about his swing…lol
Peter – The Red Sox two days ago, Piazza today… Don’t you know there is only one team in baseball and that is the Yankees, nothing else matters in the yankee universe!! {end sarcasm}. Once again I am in the minority, I was proud for Lester, and I’ll admit Piazza was the best hitting catcher in baseball to ever play the game. Wait, that will make me a non-yankee fan in some peoples eyes… ah fark it! I’m comfortable enough with my love of the Yankees to admit there are other teams and players that deserve props….
haha, RustyJohn!
wow, my post got deleted. either that or it never went thru to begin with?
thought it did…
Piazza good with blocking balls…
I smell an off color joke…
I know Pete this is a family blog so I will refrain.
Best of luck in retirement Mike. If you head to Texas be sure to watch out for flying bat barrels heading in your general vicinity.
you know hes married to a playboy playmate right? can you honestly say that about your woman ?.. well mike francescas can
Didn’t he marry a playboy bunny? That sounds like an enjoyable retirement to me.