INSIDE BASEBALL
All Seems Forgiven
On a visit to Los Angeles with the Mets, Mike Piazza got the
feeling he would be welcomed back
by Mark Bechtel
Posted: Wed September 2, 1998
Mets catcher Mike Piazza needed all of one minute to remind fans
in Los Angeles of what they had been missing since the Dodgers
traded him in May. At 5:47 p.m. last Friday he stepped into the
batter's box at Dodger Stadium for the first time since the deal,
and at 5:48 p.m. he hit a batting practice pitch over the
pavilion in leftfield.
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You can go home again. Piazza went 5 for 9 and
homered for the Mets in L.A.
(Robert Beck)
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The small percentage of fans on hand who had booed Piazza when he
first stepped into the cage went silent as he exited, and the
majority, who had been cheering for him, turned it up a notch.
There was more of the same during that night's game. Every time
his name was announced or he did anything noteworthy on the
field, Piazza—who hastened his departure from L.A. by turning
down the Dodgers' six-year, $80 million contract offer at the
start of this season—was cheered by most of the 52,154 in
attendance. The message was clear: You might be greedy, Mike, but
if you want to come back, that's fine by us.
Piazza's homecoming was just one of the juicy subplots that came
west with the Mets, who arrived in Los Angeles tied with the Cubs
for the National League wild card. Earlier in the week there had
been reports that Dodgers interim general manager Tommy Lasorda
wanted to hire New York manager and longtime friend Bobby
Valentine as Los Angeles's general manager and
manager-in-waiting. (Valentine is contractually prohibited from
managing any team except the Mets until 2000.) Then one of New
York's most popular players, catcher Todd Hundley, threw in the
towel in his noble effort to play leftfield following
reconstructive right elbow surgery. Unable to catch because his
throwing arm wasn't fully recovered from the Sept. 26 operation,
Hundley went to the outfield, but his bid to return to the lineup
was a disaster.
"This season has had major soap opera after major soap opera,"
says Valentine, who laughed off the reports that he was
L.A.-bound. "We've had distractions with Todd Hundley, but to his
credit, he's tried his damnedest, and we've weathered that. We've
weathered storms of trades, we've weathered injuries, and we've
weathered hurricanes of boos in our home park."
Among those who needed shelter from the imprecations of the fans
at Shea was Piazza, acquired from the Marlins on May 22, a week
after the Dodgers traded him to Florida. Piazza had 22 RBIs in
June and July while hitting only .220 with runners in scoring
position, a big drop-off from his career average of .346 at the
start of the season. Through Sunday he had picked up the pace,
knocking in 28 runs and batting .330 (.294 with runners in
scoring position), but the cold initial reception probably
eliminated any chance the Mets had of re-signing Piazza when he
becomes a free agent after the season.
But in L.A. countless fans wore Dodgers jerseys and T-shirts
bearing his name and number 31. Souvenir stands at Dodger Stadium
still offer Piazza shirts, which sell far more briskly than those
adorned with the name and number of Piazza's All-Star replacement
from the Marlins, Charles Johnson. (One souvenir vendor had to be
informed by a colleague that they had Johnson shirts for sale.
"We have them," his coworker told him. "I don't remember ever
selling one, but we have them.")
After last Friday's game, in which he homered off Carlos Perez in
a 5-4 Mets win, Piazza said the positive reception from the fans,
to whom he twice doffed his helmet, surprised him. "I was
honored," he said. "I didn't think I'd get that response."
Whether the warm welcome opened the door for a reconciliation
between Piazza and the Dodgers remains to be seen. Piazza's close
relationship with Lasorda, who was named Los Angeles's interim
general manager on June 22, is among the factors leading to
speculation that Piazza will return to L.A. after the season.
For his part Piazza sounds as if he's sorry for having played
fiscal hardball, and he suspects the Dodgers feel the same way.
"For whatever reason, whatever happened happened, and everyone
has regrets about it," says Piazza, 29. "Not specifically about
not getting a deal done, but maybe about how the thing was
approached. This whole year for me has been one big learning
experience. Talking to friends and family, they say, 'Mike, think
about how boring your career would have been if you hadn't done
this.' Well, boring's looking pretty good right now."
Not to everyone it isn't. One of the primary complaints from
Hundley, who set the major league record for homers in a season
by a catcher (41 in 1996, one more than Piazza hit last year), is
that leftfield is "the most boring position I've ever played."
While Hundley had improved from dropping fly balls to making more
subtle mistakes, such as throwing to the wrong base, Valentine
realized that the transition to the outfield wasn't helping the
Mets make the playoffs.
After an Aug. 25 loss in San Francisco, during which Hundley
misplayed two balls, Valentine voiced his concerns to a group of
reporters, who relayed the comments to Hundley. That night
Hundley called Valentine and asked out of the lineup for the rest
of the season. The Mets placed him on the disabled list and sent
him to Triple A Norfolk for rehab. "There wasn't any point in me
going out to leftfield in a pennant race," says Hundley. "We need
an outfielder, not a guy who is getting used to playing a
position he's never played. It's not fair to the team."
Hundley's poor defensive play would have been forgiven if he had
been hitting well. "Our challenge in bringing him back wasn't to
make him a Gold Glove leftfielder," Valentine says. "It was to
get production from his bat." But Hundley hit just .162 with two
homers in 42 games, and in 16 at bats against lefthanders the
switch-hitting Hundley had one hit and 14 strikeouts. Hundley's
priority now is to get his stroke back so that he might make the
postseason roster as a pinch hitter and emergency catcher.
But unless the Mets get some production from their leftfielders
(at week's end Tony Phillips had started four of New York's last
five games in left), they might not have to worry about the
postseason. Through Sunday, Valentine had started 10 players in
left who had combined to hit .228 with nine homers and 51
RBIs—and the centerfielders and the rightfielders hadn't done
much better. Overall, New York outfielders had batted .242 with
only 46 homers.
With such forgettable numbers, the Mets say intangibles have been
a big part of their success. "The camaraderie here is as good as
any team I've been on," says lefty Al Leiter, who has played for
three World Series winners. "I would say we're not the most
talented team around. But does that mean we can't win? Absolutely
not."
There might be one more factor at play—fate. Last Saturday, an
hour or so after Toms River, N.J., won the Little League World
Series with a last-inning home run, the Mets beat the Dodgers 4-3
on Edgardo Alfonzo's ninth-inning, two-run blast. That homer gave
the Mets their major- league-leading 29th one-run victory, and it
made a winner of Leiter, who was born in Toms River.
Issue date: September 7, 1998
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