by Mike Piazza
When I returned to the lineup on August 30, feeling stronger and refreshed, we had lost seven of the last eight. I homered my first night back, but beyond that provided no relief whatsoever. Altogether, we dropped eleven straight to make it a miserable sixteen defeats in seventeen tries.
Within a couple weeks, I was thoroughly embarrassed, deeply perplexed, and more discouraged than I’d been before I went on the DL. I thought I’d gotten better. I also thought I was better prepared, psychologically, for first base. But my performance there only reinforced the obvious, operative truth about my change of positions: it was wrong.
Maybe if the transition had been more deliberate and people had been conditioned to the fact that I wasn’t really a first baseman yet—if there had been a learning curve, maybe a year or so of dabbling over there before moving in as a starter—it might have worked better. Maybe, even, if I’d had a full spring training at first base, following some special instruction in the offseason . . .
Or maybe the Mets simply shouldn’t have forced the issue. Wouldn’t my defensive difficulties have been moderated a bit if I’d just cut back on the catching to, say, four games a week, DH’d in the American League parks, played first base here and there—maybe against certain left-handers—and been available off the bench the other days?
Unfortunately, there were business complications. I was making too much money for that. My contract was back-loaded, which meant that I was actually pulling in more salary at this point—about $16 million—than I had in the initial years of it, when I’d been in my prime. At those rates, the Mets wanted to get as many games out of me as they could. What’s more, if they’d sat me down a couple times a week, the city would certainly have pitched a fit.
Case in point: I’d been given a day off in the middle of July for the afternoon wrap-up of a series against the Phillies. We’d won the game, but nevertheless, a New York Post writer, Steve Serby, tore me apart the next day. He wrote, “It served as a reminder why Derek Jeter, who refused to sit at Shea less than 24 hours after landing face-first in the seats diving for a Trot Nixon foul pop, remains the Captain of New York Baseball. As a franchise player, Piazza didn’t have to take the manager’s decision sitting down in the most important July 18 game the Mets have played in four years. The Mets need Iron Mike, not Tirin’ Mike.”
The story just struck me as weird. A few years back, I’d become friendly with Serby when he wrote a lifestyle piece on me during the Subway Series. Then, shortly after 9/11, he tracked me down one day on the street, near my condo, which made me uncomfortable. He told me about an article he wanted to do with me; but under those circumstances, I wasn’t interested. I could be wrong, of course—it’s always a tricky thing to assign motives—but when Serby wrote the cheap shot in 2004, I had the sense that it was his payback for me not cooperating with him in 2001.
Of course, when the public reads a point of view in a newspaper, it’s not privy to the personal background that might be involved. The public didn’t know, for instance, that Mike Lupica, the Daily News columnist, was upset with me; or that I’d called out a New York Times reporter for lounging on one of the players’ couches in the clubhouse—breach of protocol—and he hadn’t forgotten it. In this case, the only thing the public could derive from the story was what Serby wrote: that I obviously wasn’t a tough-minded team guy like Derek Jeter, because I hadn’t challenged the manager’s decision to give me a midsummer afternoon of rest and recuperation. One game. Imagine if I’d been getting days off all year, on pace for sixty or more.
But here’s the thing: knowing what the fallout would be, the Mets wouldn’t have put themselves in that situation. To a fairly significant extent, the press was able to push the ball club around in that respect. The Mets, time and again, predicated their moves on what they perceived would be the reaction of the media, and in turn the city. That’s ultimately what happened in 2004, I believe. When the clamor built up about moving me to first base, and continued, the team responded by moving me to first base, whether I was ready or not.
From the Mets’ perspective, look at it this way: If I took well to the position, stayed healthy all year, and hit forty homers, they’d have come out ahead. If I didn’t—if it turned out the way it actually turned out—that would make it easier for them to part ways with me after my contract expired at the end of 2005; a hell of a lot easier. It would make me look obsolete and in the way. Besides, by 2005 or at least 2006, they would almost surely have a new face of the franchise: David Wright, most likely. Not only was he a terrific and appealing young player, but New York fans tend to be more tolerant of guys who come up through the organization. David Wright was the man-in-waiting. Jose Reyes fit the bill, as well.
At the end of the season, my take on the first-base quandary hadn’t really changed from the way I’d seen it at the end of the season before: the most sensible solution would have been for the Mets to acquire a legitimate first baseman and simply have me share the catching duties with Jason Phillips, if they were looking to break in a young guy, or Vance Wilson, whom I really admired as a receiver. I respected the payroll considerations, but to put me at first on a regular basis, unready and unequipped, was simply not in the best competitive interest of the ball club. It reflected the seat-of-the-pants approach to roster construction—the lack of vision, essentially—that doomed our team in those days, from the moment Nelson Doubleday sold his interest to the Wilpons.
We finished 2004 at twenty games under .500, which, sadly, was exactly our average in the three full seasons following 2001. Maybe it’s just my personal regard for Art Howe, but the whole debacle didn’t seem like the manager’s fault. He took the fall nonetheless, when he was fired as soon as the season ended—actually before it ended, although, gentleman that he is, he agreed to finish it out. Jim Duquette, who had served as general manager for a little over a year since replacing Steve Phillips in 2003, was canned, as well. Willie Randolph, best known as a Yankee, would take over for Howe. The new GM would be Omar Minaya, whose first order of business seemed to be trading me.
I really don’t know how the talks initiated, or if they actually did, for that matter; but for a couple of hot weeks in November, stories flew around about the Mets and Dodgers considering a swap of me and Shawn Green, a veteran, left-handed-hitting outfielder who could also handle first base. It made sense, actually. Both of us would be playing out the last years of our contracts, making almost identical money. The Mets needed a first baseman and the Dodgers needed a catcher. The Dodgers missed me and the Mets probably wouldn’t. If the prospect of returning to my old team didn’t thrill me, the thought of returning to my old position certainly did. Meanwhile, other rumors had me going to the Angels.
I knew my time in New York was winding down, and the concept of leaving a year ahead of schedule didn’t seem all that disagreeable. On the other hand, I’d bought a condo in TriBeCa—half of a penthouse, across the hall from Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, which gave the floor a nice political balance. I was looking forward to living there with my bride.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Donald Trump’s wedding to Melania Knauss took place in Palm Beach a week before ours, which was in Miami, so a lot of the paparazzi stayed over. His guests included Oprah Winfrey, Muhammad Ali, Clint Eastwood, Luciano Pavarotti, Usher, Elton John, Billy Joel, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shaquille O’Neal, Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, and a couple princes. We had none of those folks. And yet Hugh Hefner—who wasn’t there, either—said of ours that it was one of the best-looking wedding parties in history.
Needless to say, Alicia gets most of the credit for that, and not just for being incredibly beautiful herself, especially in her white satin gown. My only contribution along those lines was my brother and best man, Tony, who’s a good-looking guy. Hers included bridesmaids who were Playmates and Baywatch types, such as Brande Roderick, Lisa Dergan—who married Scott Podsednik, the outfielder—and Angelica Bridges, the wife of my friend Sheldon Souray. Alicia also made her mark o
n the church, St. Jude (because it’s Melkite, an ancient Byzantine branch of Catholicism that originated in the Middle East, we needed special permission and class instruction to get married there), which has an impressive amount of stained glass that she embellished with pillars of candles and arches of pink roses. Of the hundred or so people who attended the service, the vast majority sat on her side, which made me realize that, after sixteen years in professional baseball, I didn’t have too many close friends to show for it. Franco and Leiter came. Lasorda didn’t. I did supply the priest and the Cuban dude named Arturo, I think, who rolled cigars at the reception.
The priest, Ignatius Catanello, was an auxiliary bishop from the Brooklyn diocese and a serious Mets fan. He conducted some of our Sunday masses at Shea Stadium, which I really enjoyed, and we’d hit it off. I was able to talk to Bishop Iggy about everything—Alicia, faith, sex, slumps, first base, life changes, theology, history, whatever. He became a strong influence and helped me see things in a more spiritual light. It meant a lot to us that he agreed to come to Miami to officiate our ceremony, which was just about perfect. We had a guy shoot the whole thing on Super 8 motion-picture film, and it’s like a piece of art. I’ve watched the video so many times that Alicia thinks it’s weird.
After the wedding, everyone went to the house of our friends J. R. and Loren Ridinger to take pictures, then boarded a couple of yachts—one of which belonged to Pudge Rodriguez, who lived on the water—to ride over to the reception at the mansion on Fisher Island, a gorgeous place (the island had the highest per capita income in the United States) that was once owned by the Vanderbilts. We’d met J.R. and Loren a few years before when I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to go to a Dolphins game (when the Eagles were in town) and the guy hooked me up with J.R., who had a suite at the stadium. He and Loren own Market America, a large online shopping network.
Loren and Alicia made three different test runs on the yachts and timed them to ensure that we all arrived on the island at just the right moment, when it was not too dark but dusky enough that the candles would stand out. Somehow—you can only get to Fisher by boat—the paparazzi were already there. Loren had them escorted out, because it wasn’t the time or place. There really weren’t that many celebrities, anyway. Some of the newspaper stories said that Shaq came and Billy Ray Cyrus sang at the wedding, but it wasn’t true. It was a great time, though. We had a DJ playing Moroccan music. All the guests were given their own golf carts so they could ride around the grounds and dodge the peacocks. Of course, most of the guys hung out around the pool, where the cigar roller was set up. That was before it was hip. We were pioneers. Arturo rolled me a big cigar in the shape of a baseball bat. I still have it in my humidor.
The next day, the New York Post ran a picture of Alicia and me on the front page, coming out of the church and looking up as our friends tossed flower petals at us. The headline was “Mr. and Mrs. Met.” Just below, there was a little streamer that said, “Iraq Votes.” Even after seven years in New York, the city still amazed me sometimes. I thought, man, are we really that big a story? I suppose it was flattering. And I was at the stage of my career when flattery felt kind of nice.
To me, the symbolism of the wedding reached beyond even love and commitment. It was the start of a new chapter. For such a long time, I’d been dead set against getting married, for fear that it would compromise my single-mindedness; but things were different now. The rest of my life was upon me. While my mission in baseball wasn’t yet complete, it was clearly approaching that point. I was an aging catcher who couldn’t play any other position and my contract was up at the end of the season. To be honest, I wasn’t sure that I’d still be in uniform after 2005. I was less confident and more injury-prone than ever before. By default, I guess, I was still “the man” on the Mets, but that would last only until somebody else stepped up. Bottom line: my place in the game, as I’d known it, was no longer secure.
Inevitably, that reality fostered a feeling of insecurity, which, for an athlete, feeds on itself. As my stature dwindled, I’d wake up thinking, What are they gonna write about me today? When I was young and invincible, I could blow right through all that clutter; I trusted that, within a day or two, I’d bust three hits and a long home run and everything would be good again. I raked, we won; it was simple. Now neither was happening very often. I’d become sensitive. Vulnerable. I needed somebody to hold my hand and assure me it was okay; to listen to me rant and tell me to shut up and get a grip; to be there. Alicia had a way of making me feel better.
I’d first realized it early in the 2004 season, after she’d moved in with me at my Gramercy Park place. It was a cold, rainy night at Shea, we had a small crowd to start with and by late in the game most of it was gone. I looked up at my box and saw this little head up there, sticking out the window. It just made me smile to myself. I can’t say for certain whether that was the instant I knew I’d marry Alicia—I’d had a pretty good idea right from the start—but it was one of those that reduced the world to her and me. That was a way better world than the one I’d been struggling through.
There was also this: The week of the wedding, the Daily News conducted a poll on baseball’s hottest wife. In a close vote over Anna Benson—the former stripper whose husband, Kris, was a starting pitcher who had just signed with us as a free agent—Alicia won.
In other news, I didn’t get traded.
• • •
Benson wasn’t the only starter we’d brought in for 2005. Except for Glavine, our whole rotation turned over.
Al Leiter, my best friend on the ball club, was gone after a great seven-year stretch. Steve Trachsel sustained a herniated disk in spring training and would miss most of the season. In their stead, we were counting on, among others, Victor Zambrano, who had been acquired through a trade with Tampa Bay at the 2004 deadline. (To get Zambrano, the Mets had given up Scott Kazmir, which didn’t make sense to many people, including me. There was a rumor that Kazmir, a twenty-year-old lefty who threw about ninety-five miles an hour, had been dealt because he’d been disrespectful to Leiter in spring training. It was one of those ludicrous stories that always seemed to pop up when the Mets were in a public-relations pickle. What actually happened was that Al and Johnny Franco were riding bikes in the weight room at spring training, listening to a CD of old Motown stuff, most likely, and Kazmir, who I think was in his first big-league camp, strolled in after a throwing session, walked over to the CD player, and stuck in Eminem or some such. Leiter looked at Franco, kind of raised his eyebrows, and said, “Do you believe that?” Franco replied with something like “When you were coming up, would you have done that to Guidry and Righetti?” Then Al turned to Kazmir and said, “Hey, Scotty, we’re listening to some music here, man,” and Kazmir said, “Okay, all right, I see how it works around here.” He changed the CD back, and that was it. No more problems, no hard feelings, nothing. Until the media started questioning the trade of a phenom left-hander.) We’d also picked up Kazuhisa Ishii from the Dodgers in a swap for Jason Phillips. And then there was the coup de grâce: Pedro Martinez.
I admired Pedro’s competitiveness and didn’t actually dislike him. Ironically, he and my father became pretty good friends. If I ran into Pedro today, I’d probably give him a hug. Nevertheless, our differences ran deep and were a matter of record. At various times in our personal history—which was tied to my chilly relationship with his brother Ramon, in spite of catching his no-hitter in 1995—he had hit me in the hand, questioned my manhood, and referred to me publicly as “Fucking Piazza.” So this wasn’t going to be easy, seeing as how, once again, I was a catcher and only a catcher.
Thanks to Willie Randolph and Omar Minaya for that, incidentally. It turned out Omar didn’t have to deal me away to solve the first-base problem. With Willie’s blessing, he put me back where I belonged and traded for Doug Mientkiewicz, going for the maximum upgrade around the bag. It was what the Mets should have done the year before.
As far as Pedro was c
oncerned, I was resolved not to let the team be affected by our little feud. I’d mellowed a little bit, I guess, and had come to realize that, for the most part, you don’t achieve the level of success that Pedro ultimately did—especially in a foreign country—without being a motherfucker; without having the fire and fury inside you. The fact is, I couldn’t relate to players who didn’t have that, the ones who were just kicking the can down the road. And sometimes, in cases like Pedro’s, I locked horns with the guys who did, because we were snorting bulls in the same pen. That’s probably why I never had many friends in the game. For whatever reason or reasons—immaturity, selfishness, trying too hard, or some other of my numerous character flaws—I wasn’t always the best teammate.
Apparently Pedro was feeling the same spirit of conciliation. At his first press conference in New York, he stated that “whatever happens before when we were not teammates or whatever—whatever words were said—have to be forgotten the first moment I became a teammate. He’s now my family.”
Détente had its reward on Opening Day in Cincinnati, when Pedro struck out twelve Reds in six innings, although we lost in the bottom of the ninth, 7–6, on back-to-back home runs off Braden Looper by Adam Dunn and Joe Randa. Our working relationship remained good enough, and Pedro settled in nicely as our ace; had a hell of a year, in fact. I can’t say, however, that he and I ever became confidants, or even buddies.
Our relationship was part of a bigger scheme of things, and a very strange dynamic. Going back to my days with the Dodgers, there was a bizarre sort of energy between me and the Spanish-speaking pitchers, in particular—Pedro, Ramon, and Ismael Valdez. Fraternization is widespread in the big leagues, especially between Latin American players, and honestly, I felt as though there was some kind of weird Hispanic conspiracy against me, almost like a secret brotherhood, a Latin mafia type of thing that had it in for me. I know it sounds paranoid—a dramatic way of describing what could just be a combination of coincidence, the nature of the game, and a few friends comparing notes—but there’s a litany of circumstantial evidence for something on that order, winding through my experiences in the low minor leagues, the comments from Ramon and Valdez in Los Angeles, the verbal assaults from Pedro, and getting hit with pitches from Pedro, Guillermo Mota—twice—and, later in 2005, Julian Tavarez. And that’s just the conspicuous stuff. The real sense of it comes simply from the vibes you pick up.
