Long Shot

by Mike Piazza

  Bobby Cox: “I thought Piazza’s ball was out. Way out.”

  Smoltz: “I thought it was gone. It was one of the worst sliders I’d thrown all year.”

  Tim Wallach: “What happened to Mike’s ball? I don’t understand it . . . . It was weird.”

  What was even weirder was that, leading off the tenth inning, Javy Lopez, Atlanta’s catcher, hit a ball to right-center that didn’t look like it was going out. And, of course, it did.

  You can imagine how disheartening it was to come off a game like that and have to face Maddux in the next one. Valdez actually outpitched him into the seventh, but then Fred McGriff and Dye hit home runs and they beat us, 3–2. The last game was less suspenseful. Nomo wasn’t at his best, and Glavine was.

  And so, we had once again fallen short. Everybody said so. We had five Rookies of the Year on our club; we were supposed to win. Making the playoffs two years in a row wasn’t good enough. Raising our winning percentage for the fourth consecutive year wasn’t good enough. After losing to the Braves, we heard the same refrain that we had heard before and would hear again, over and over: the Dodgers were chronic underachievers. Eric and I talked about it all the time because it drove us crazy. If having a bunch of Rookies of the Year means you’re supposed to win in the postseason, then I guess we were supposed to win in the postseason. But it also means you’ve got a young, inexperienced team.

  After the season, I found out what it was like to play on a club that wasn’t young. MLB put together an all-star team for an eight-game series in Japan. Alex Rodriguez was still a young guy, but we also had Cal Ripken Jr., Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Ivan Rodriguez, Andres Galarraga, Juan Gonzalez, John Franco, Jeff Brantley, and Sammy Sosa. And Nomo, which was interesting. Now, that team was supposed to win. Sure enough, we kicked some ass.

  • • •

  On the first Monday of 1997, six months after Tommy stepped down as manager, Peter O’Malley announced that he would be selling the Dodgers. It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of that development.

  No matter how our personal circumstances had played out, those of us who were Dodgers realized that we were part of a special organization. Tommy hammered that home in his inimitable way, but Peter was the man who made it so. He was the one who set the tone by serving ice cream to club employees every time we took over first place or widened our lead, by entertaining us in Dodgertown with barbecues and hay rides and a huge St. Patrick’s Day party and even a visit from Santa Claus, by allowing family members to fly free on the team plane anywhere we went, by actually listening to our suggestions about things like flight food and room arrangements, and, most important, by maintaining his dignity at every turn. Not only were the Dodgers considered a family, but they were, in fact, the last entirely family-owned team in the game.

  Ultimately, that was the reason O’Malley felt compelled to sell. As he said at his press conference, “Professional sports today is as high-risk as the oil business. You need a broader base than an individual family to carry you through the storm.” In the attempt to broaden his base, Peter had wanted to build a football stadium at Chavez Ravine and lure the NFL back to Los Angeles; but the city opted to use the Coliseum for that purpose. I think that took a toll on him, and so did baseball’s latest collective bargaining agreement, which had been signed in November.

  The new collective bargaining agreement included a luxury tax imposed on the well-heeled teams, to be distributed among those in smaller markets. It wasn’t just the principle of revenue sharing that bothered O’Malley, but the peculiar position it put him in. He could have been obligated to cut a check to the Anaheim Angels, who competed against him for the same market. It would have amounted to the O’Malley family handing out money to the Disney corporation, which was in the process of taking over the Angels. That was hard to swallow. At the same time, however, the five-year agreement gave baseball some much-needed stability, which made it a good time to sell.

  In order to soften the shock of the sudden announcement, the press conference conveyed the message that everything would continue on, business as usual. We knew differently, of course. There’d be no more Santa Claus in Dodgertown, and it was not likely that I’d see the new owner at Mass every Sunday, as I did O’Malley.

  As if to prove their point, though, the Dodgers did some very important business just two days later. They signed Eric Karros to a four-year, $20 million contract, making him the club’s highest-paid player. Eric was due to become a free agent after the 1997 season, a year before I was. But my contract had expired, as well, and by signing Eric first, Fred Claire and Sam Fernandez appeared to be doing one of two things: declaring him as the top priority or setting some kind of precedent for me. Either way, I didn’t find it warm or particularly fuzzy.

  I’d asked for a four- to six-year deal at $10–13 million a year, which was somewhere in the range of what Albert Belle had just received from the White Sox; probably a smidgen less. I figured the organization would be motivated to dodge arbitration—I had two more years of it—and, at the same time, tie me up through my early seasons of free agency. It made perfect sense to me. Nevertheless, Eric’s contract, whether calculated to do so or not, made my request look a little out of whack, if not outrageous. The Dodgers were aiming to give me four years at about $30 million, total, which seemed pretty damn generous by comparison. Those numbers also fell in line with the $6,665,000 for which the Rangers signed Ivan Rodriguez about ten days after Eric’s deal was done, avoiding arbitration by giving Pudge the biggest one-year contract in history and more money than a catcher had ever made in a season. Even so, Dan Lozano and I had our own calculated notions of what I had coming to me, and we weren’t daunted by any of that.

  When it became painfully obvious that our attempts at a long-term deal were going nowhere, and since I’d hit more home runs and driven in more runs over my first four years than any other catcher, ever, we decided to go for a record arbitration bid. Nobody had ever requested more than $6.5 million—Jack McDowell in 1994—but we hinted to reporters that we’d be shooting for around $8 million, which was roughly Ken Griffey Junior money. The way baseball arbitration works is that the player will submit his figure and the team will submit its own, and rather than arrive at a number in between, the arbitrator must choose one or the other. We hoped that by throwing eight million out there, the Dodgers would be nervous enough to nudge their offer a little higher. I truly didn’t want to go through the arbitration process, but we had arrived at that point and we had a game plan in place. When we submitted the official asking price, we set it at $7,650,000. It wasn’t the $8 million we’d floated to the press, but it was still a record arbitration figure, and it was enough to get the club off its duff.

  In no time at all, we’d settled for two years and $15 million. Sam and Fred were willing to go to three years for a little less money per season, but that third year would be my first crack at free agency. I didn’t see any reason to sell it out for a salary I was sure I could beat, by a lot, when the time came.

  In the end, the deal left the Dodgers at significant risk of losing me after my sixth season. Needless to say, they knew that. Or at least they should have.

  Then again, ownership of the club would soon be changing. Whose problem was it, really?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Early in spring training of 1997, Bob Nightengale, the Dodgers’ beat writer for the Los Angeles Times, approached me to ask about the rumors. Apparently, it was unimaginable that a sixty-second-round draft choice—and a courtesy pick, at that—could legitimately hit .326 and average a hundred RBIs over his first four seasons of Major League Baseball. Apparently, it was all but impossible for a guy who wasn’t a particularly gifted athlete—couldn’t run, not especially graceful—to be strong, quick, and skillful enough to drive so many balls out of so many ballparks. Apparently, it was not plausible that the son of a prosperous businessman with friends in high places would actually put in the work required to make himself—at the rate I was
going—the best-hitting catcher in the history of the game, according to the numbers.

  Apparently, my career was a story that nobody cared to believe. Apparently, my success was the work of steroids. Had to be. Those were the rumors.

  I didn’t mind that Nightengale asked the question. He was ahead of the curve on the steroids issue. In 1995, he’d written a story in which Randy Smith, the general manager of the Padres, estimated that 10 to 20 percent of major leaguers used steroids. Tony Gwynn was quoted saying, “It’s like the big secret we’re not supposed to talk about, but believe me, we wonder just like the rest of the people. I’m standing out there in the outfield when a guy comes up, and I’m thinking, ‘Hey, I wonder if this guy is on steroids.’ ” Bear in mind, too, that in 1996 the Orioles, Mariners, and A’s had all exceeded the previous single-season record for home runs, and more than twice as many players as ever before had hit forty—including Ken Caminiti and Mark McGwire, who reached fifty for the first time. Those two had not yet been implicated, but steroids had become part of the conversation. And in the course of that conversation, my name was being dropped. This was a chance to speak for myself.

  “They’re saying, ‘Piazza is on steroids. Piazza is doing this, Piazza is doing that,’ ” I told Nightengale. “People can say what they want, but I don’t use steroids. I’m not upset by the rumors, but I’ll be upset at myself if I ever start listening [to them] . . . . I think if people saw how much work I put into this game, those rumors would stop. And it’s not only training. It’s my diet.”

  Nearly everything I put in my mouth was gauged for its muscle-building value. That was a habit I’d picked up from my dad and the Joe Weider magazines, way back when, and refined through my associations with trainers and nutritionists on the teams I’d played for and the gyms I’d lifted in. There were a lot of supplements available that didn’t have to be acquired illegally or through a prescription. You could walk into GNC and buy androstenedione, or “andro.” Or you could pick up the Monster Pak, with those intriguing before-and-after pictures. There was clearly a line that had to be crossed to get from the Monster Paks to the controlled substances classified as performance-enhancing drugs. For those, essentially, you needed a dealer. You had to seek out somebody to supply you with something you couldn’t get at the mall. You had to break the law. I was interested in power, but not prison.

  The Monster Pak served my purpose. It included andro, creatine, and various types of amino acids. In the off-season, I’d eat eggs and whole wheat toast, take the stuff in the Monster Pak, and head to the gym to train. Or go to Bucky Dent’s camp in Boca Raton, Florida, and work out there. I do believe that supplements make a difference, but they have to be used in conjunction with serious training and a good diet. I always included protein shakes in the mix, as well—and still do. I never bought andro separately in a bottle, like the one that was spotted in McGwire’s locker in 1998, but frankly, I never made a point of not buying it that way. I just didn’t need to, because it was part of the Monster Pak. Andro was so accessible, and so common, that it never occurred to me to consider it cheating. When we heard about McGwire’s locker, players didn’t think of him as a cheater. But the media made such a commotion about it that the perceptions shifted. As a result, I felt compelled to phase andro out of my routine. Of course, it was later (in 2004) banned by the Food and Drug Administration and baseball as a “steroid precursor.”

  I’d disagree with anyone who says that there was a steroid culture in the game—at least, there wasn’t one on the teams I knew—but there was a drug mentality, and it blurred the lines between what was acceptable and what wasn’t. With the Dodgers, and I’m sure with most teams, you pulled a hamstring and boom, there’s the Vioxx. We had a big trunk full of drugs for your aches and pains and inflammations. Charlie Strasser, the trainer, always said that if somebody really wanted to rip off the ball club, he shouldn’t go for the bats or balls or gloves but for that big trunk with all the drugs in it. They had Vioxx, Indocin, Voltaren, you name it. As soon as you yanked a muscle, they’d bring you a cardboard sheet with the foil in the back and they’d punch out whatever pills you needed. But I should add that medications weren’t abused by the players. The trainer was the only one who could dip into the trunk. On the other hand, the stuff was there for us and we weren’t reluctant to take advantage of it. I used Vioxx because it was an intense anti-inflammatory and it made me feel good. When I’d caught for twenty-two straight days and could hardly drag myself out of bed to get to the ballpark, Vioxx picked me up. I’d sing, “It’s gonna be a Vioxx morning . . .” Vioxx was ultimately associated with heart-attack risk and was pulled from the market by the manufacturer.

  I also took greenies a couple times. A lot of guys couldn’t play without them, but I didn’t care for the feeling they gave me. Raul Mondesi would snap off a couple of greenies in a big cup of coffee and say, “Mike, take this!” They left me too jittery. I preferred Dymetadrine, which is a very light asthma medication that sends more oxygen to the brain. Dymetadrine made me alert and focused, which helped for day games after night games. Occasionally I used ephedra for that purpose. It was a fat burner, like drinking ten cups of coffee, and another supplement you could easily buy at GNC. Nobody was concerned about the propriety of it until an autopsy revealed that Steve Bechler, a young pitcher for the Orioles who was trying to lose weight, had ephedra in his system when he died of heatstroke after a spring training workout in 2003. It was then added to the banned list.

  The banned list keeps growing, which I suppose is not surprising. In some fashion or other, aren’t all modern medicines performance-enhancing drugs? Johnny Bench told me he’d get a cortisone shot every two weeks in his thumb. Is cortisone a PED? No, not officially. You get a cortisone shot so you can go out and play, and that’s being tough; that’s manly. But if you take a PED before you go out and play, that’s cheating. I’m not making excuses for guys who do steroids; that’s not my point. My point is, there’s a drug culture in sports.

  As to when our collective consciousness was actually raised in regard to PEDs, it’s hard to say. The Caminiti article in Sports Illustrated (2002) by Tom Verducci is generally credited for opening the game’s eyes. It certainly spoke loudly to a lot of players. But I think the impact of steroids was impressed upon me by Mark McGwire—although, when he came over to the National League in 1997, I really didn’t know what I was looking at, other than raw, mind-boggling power that absolutely blew me away. Like everybody else, I’d make sure to be out on the field when McGwire was taking batting practice, just to get my world rocked. He was hitting balls in places where I’d never seen them hit. Freaking Scud missiles. My only thought was, holy shit! Whether his capacity to crush a baseball was artificially flavored or not—the guy did hit forty-nine home runs as a rookie, back in 1987—it was fucking impressive. I was awestruck.

  Not long ago, I saw an interview with Reggie Jackson in which he said that players used steroids even in his day, but that not much was made of it because those guys weren’t changing the game. When home run records started to fall, it was a different matter. That’s what brought on all the scrutiny and led, eventually, to McGwire’s admission that he was taking them when he hit seventy home runs in 1998. Maybe the PEDs helped him break Roger Maris’s record; I can’t say for certain. But I can say this: Mark McGwire knew how to hit. He understood the strike zone and had a clear idea of what he was trying to do at the plate. He was an unbelievable low-ball hitter. When I was catching and he laid into one, it sounded to me the way that twenty-ton howitzer must have sounded to my dad when he was standing next to it back in Germany.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what, other than great technique and incredible strength, allowed McGwire to hit a ball so astonishingly hard and far, but I knew it wasn’t andro. I also knew that there was a buzz going around the game, and I had a pretty good idea that, real soon, I’d have to make a call—either cross a line or don’t. I chose not to.

  In the meantime, I had no
problem telling Bob Nightengale I was clean. I was also in great shape after another winter of hard training, and ready for the best season of my career.

  • • •

  We expected a lot out of 1997. So, by midseason, when we were playing .500 ball, trailing the Rockies and losing sight of the Giants, there was some explaining to do.

  I was not a politically correct kind of guy and never sought the position of clubhouse leader. My pattern was to leave my heart on the field and pick my spots with the press. But after four good seasons that kept jacking up my profile, my locker had become a gathering place for the local and even national media. Whether I liked it or not, I had become a spokesman for the ball club. As its catcher, that was part of my job description, anyhow. What’s more, I was having a big year, hitting around .360 and competing again for a batting title. For a variety of reasons—among them, relative health, better mechanics, and my sessions with Mike Scioscia—I was also throwing out base stealers with more frequency than any time since 1993. I was leading the voting for the National League all-star team. The platform was mine.

  The subject was team chemistry. We’d never been known for it, but the ’97 season was feeling less lovey-dovey than most. In late April, we’d aired everything out in a team meeting that ended in a team scuffle. As usual, we were divided between hitters and pitchers, but the splits went deeper than that. Several of us, including me, had our differences with our manager, Bill Russell. (To start with, he’d made me catch the full nine innings of the first televised spring training game, presumably because he wanted so badly to win it. My blood was boiling by the sixth.)

  And then there were the cultural fractures that resulted from a global roster. When we ate in the clubhouse after road games, for example, the American players sat at one table, the Caribbean guys at another, and the Mexicans at a third. That was right there for the writers to see; but the underlying language differences had less conspicuous, more problematic effects. Once, after Chan Ho Park suffered through a rough outing, our pitching coach, Dave Wallace, instructed him to control his emotions. The next day, Chan Ho, ever dutiful, was off by himself practicing his motion. Sometimes, when our communication broke down, Park would throw a two-seam fastball when I was expecting a four-seamer. I’d get ticked off and vent it in a snippy Philadelphia manner that offended his Korean sensibilities. Our backup catcher, Tom Prince, had a similar situation with Nomo. One night, when they couldn’t get their signs straight, an interpreter had to walk them through it after the game.