It may be wishful thinking but maybe the Mitchell Report was Mike Piazza’s revenge. The big news of the report is that Roger Clemens – widely regarded as one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history – was a regular steroid user. In hindsight, it shouldn’t be all that shocking. Clemens, like Bonds, had had an extraordinarily successful career into his mid-30s. Then, suddenly, he got even better – dramatically better at an age when other athletes were noticeably declining.
Back to Piazza. He was roundly criticized in 2000 for not being “tough enough” to stand up to Roger Clemens. Here’s the backstory:
Clemens’s 2000 season was punctuated by a pair of notorious moments involving New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza. During a July 8, 2000, game between the Mets and the Yankees, Clemens threw a high inside fastball to Piazza which bounced off Piazza’s hand and hit him squarely in the head. Piazza had previously enjoyed great success as a hitter against Clemens (including a grand slam against Clemens one month earlier), which was widely seen as Clemens’s motivation. The incident and its aftermath received intense media coverage. Piazza bitterly criticized Clemens, while the Mets were assailed for not “protecting” their star catcher (retaliating by hitting an important Yankee batter). And when both the Yankees and the Mets reached that year’s World Series, there was great anticipation regarding the two men’s first confrontation since the beaning.
In Piazza’s first at-bat of Game 2, his bat shattered, sending a large piece of the broken bat shard flying in Clemens’ direction. Clemens picked it up and threw the broken bat down toward the first base line, missing Piazza but clearing the benches of both teams. [9] Clemens later claimed that he was “fielding” the broken bat, having mistaken it for the baseball. His explanation was widely ridiculed.
In the aftermath of the incident, many felt Piazza hadn’t been tough enough – that he should have gone out to the mound and decked Clemens. After all, Piazza was a big guy, the team leader, he needed, reasoning went to step up.
Perhaps today was his revenge. Perhaps today he showed baseball and baseball fans what honor and integrity are all about.
It may yet come out that Piazza was a steroid guy just as much or more than Clemens was. He was certainly part of a Mets team where some players were using the stuff. But at this moment when baseball fans are looking for a silver lining and where parents are trying to explain why multi-million dollar athletes – Hall of Fame athletes – are cheating, perhaps he is a figure to honor.
Instead of lowering himself to Clemens’ level by attacking him, Piazza took a higher ground. He gave honor and dignity to the game he was playing – rather unlike Mr. Clemens.
I’m a baseball fan. I’ve been a Mets fan all of my life. I could have this completely wrong. But on this dark day in professional baseball I’m looking for something honorable and good and noble. And this is the best thing I’ve got.
posted December 14, 2007 at 9:20 am
Hey, what’s wrong with HGH, if it makes a person “dramtically better” healthwise and performancewise?
It certainly hasn’t hurt these athletes.
Anyone ever thought about that?
posted December 14, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I was living in Atlanta when Piazza and the Dodgers put the Braves in the playoffs on the last day of the season. I’ve liked him ever since and still do and if this is a good day for him, it is for me.
I’m dying to know if Albert Pujols is on the list. Is there a stronger man in baseball? If he didn’t use, no one should.
posted December 14, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Anabolic steroids also can affect the user’s personality and make people more aggressive and hostile than there normally are, so called “‘Roid Rage.” I wonder whether Clemens may have been juiced during that incident, and therefore provoked Piazza in both incidents due to high steroid hormone levels.
I personally find it sad that most sports fans applauded Clemens’ aggressive and unsportsman-like behavior (possible steroid-induced) and denigrated Piazza’s restraint. I think it says something about our society-somehow we prize sticking to the other guy or winning at all costs over the nobility of respecting an opponent or playing by the rules.
posted December 15, 2007 at 12:23 am
The pitch that beaned Piazza was a tailing fastball. Darn near impossible for him to avoid getting hit right in the head.
As a lifelong Red Sox fan, I’ve always thought that Piazza should have perforated Clemens’ colon with that broken bat.
But I’ll grudgingly admit that he may have been right to take the high road.
Clemens had a Bondsian career trajectory, and a reputation for prickliness and the insane aggression you describe in this post. He even threw at his son in spring training one time. While the Mitchell Report was unfair in many respects, it would not be a surprise, at all, if Clemens used steroids.
posted December 15, 2007 at 1:12 am
So the bat-throwing incident WAS ‘roid rage …
(And I always loved the fact that the next year, when the Mets first had a chance to throw at Clemens at revenge, their pitcher, Shawn Estes, couldn’t even hit the steroid-enlarged Clemens on his first try.)
BTW, the one name I was surprised to see on the list was Andy Pettitte, generally regarded (unlike Bonds, Giambi, Tejada, Clemens himself, etc.) as a baseball good citizen. But he was friends with Clemens and “trained” with him.
Now we know what the training was
posted December 15, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I’m going back to watching WWE wrestling – it’s the only pure sport left!
posted December 16, 2007 at 10:08 am
Pitchers have been throwing at the heads of batters since baseballs were rags tied together in a knot big enough to throw and hit. Has anyone ever been hurt by HGH? It seems like it only makes a person physically better.
posted February 16, 2008 at 1:35 pm
March 23, 2003 NY Times
Microscope Reveals Piazza to Be an Adult
By Selena Roberts
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.– Spring training’s tough-guy threesome ooze the virility of a monster truck; just don’t look under the hood. The men on the mound reflect more machismo than Vin Diesel’s mirror; just don’t shatter their image. While the Dodgers’ Guillermo Mota, Boston’s Pedro Martínez and the Yankees’ David Wells have directly, and indirectly, challenged Mike Piazza’s manhood meter this spring, the pitchers have skirted inspection of their own masculinity.
Begin with Mota. He is the power pitcher who was throttled by the Mets’ Piazza one spring ago for his suspicious lack of precision. As his Dodgers teammate Brian Jordan said, it was “a pride thing” when Mota decided to show his Dominican pals back home what he was made of by planting a seam in Piazza’s muscle last week. Ah, fleeting valiance. As Piazza charged the mound, Mota ran more quickly than an ink stain. Yet, Mota’s hide-and-seek strategy wasn’t dissected the way Piazza’s retaliation was.
“Maybe he felt like he had to show off his testosterone,” Martínez said of Piazza to Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci. “But this may be more embarrassing than the one before. Why do you go after skinny Guillermo Mota in spring training and do nothing to Roger Clemens in the World Series?” Perhaps it’s easy for Martínez to wax bravado when he carries a projectile in his hand for a living. But has anyone ever seen Martínez stand in for one of his rare at-bats? Ponytails swing harder.
Speaking of wild swingers, Wells is the Yankee who has rumbled on a Harley and in a local diner. He is the pitcher with a body like beer foam and a thirst for rebellion. Taking liberty with his man’s man label, he directed a recent shot at Piazza in his autobiography. Vulgar description aside, Wells wrote that he would have gone after Clemens if he had been in Piazza’s place. Such bravery. Yet, Wells is the author who couldn’t stand up for his own freedom of hyperbole, the same Bluto who sucked up a $100,000 fine over his book without a fight, the same lug who trembled at the thought of angering the Boss.
All this evidence of opposition weakness, and Piazza never gets the same pass. Somehow, the batter’s box has been turned into a petri dish for Piazza. Under a thick lens, Piazza is examined on whether he is passive or aggressive when plunked by a pitch. No one in baseball is under more scrutiny for reaction or inaction.
There are two reasons for this: one concerns a simple feud, the other reflects the complexities of a rumor. The grudge issue began when Clemens released a fastball that bit Piazza in the head, leaving him with a concussion in July 2000. It continued at the World Series, when
Clemens threw a pitch with saw teeth, shattering Piazza’s bat. With millions watching, Clemens hurled the jagged barrel in the direction of Piazza. A bit bewildered, Piazza opted for non-confrontation.
***”I think everyone’s going to judge the Roger thing like he should have done something there, but those were totally different situations,” said the Yankees’ Robin Ventura, Piazza’s friend and former Mets teammate. “The first one, he was hit in the head and taken off the field. The bat one, it was the World Series, and we weren’t really a team that could lose a bat. He at least understood that.”***
The digs since then are proof that not everyone is so reasonable. This is not surprising. After all, baseball is not underscored by rational thought or deep enlightenment. Where else do grown men wear rally caps?
Given this, it is no wonder that Piazza felt compelled last season to address a blind gossip item that insinuated he was gay. While it would have been progressive for Piazza to ignore inappropriate attention into his personal life, he calmly stated, “I’m not gay.” Whether the continuing deconstruction of Piazza’s manliness is due to the Clemens backdrop or the rumor about his sexuality – as if fighting Clemens would make him more of a man, as if being gay would dilute his virility – he has become a target for the immature element in baseball. The question is, has peer pressure, or public pressure, changed Piazza’s approach to a beanball? Has the influence of others turned his even keel on edge? “If someone questioned my sexuality, no one would care,” said Vance Wilson, a Mets backup catcher and friend of Piazza’s. “But I know Mike. He’s not trying to prove he’s a man. He’s got nothing to prove. Maybe some guys think he does. I don’t know any guys like that. But if there are any, it’s immaturity.”
Piazza is one of baseball’s adults. When given the chance on Friday to whimper about scrutiny (à la Wells), when offered an opportunity to retreat from the heat (à la Mota), when handed the moment to flex his testosterone (à la Martínez), Piazza chose a path of tolerance.
***”I can only look at it as a flattering thing,” Piazza said of the scrutiny. “There are very few players ever put under that microscope. But that doesn’t change my perspective at all. I can’t worry about others’ opinion when I’m playing baseball. You sort of become numb to it. I feel oblivious to it….My reactions are for others to analyze and talk about. That’s their deal. It’s not my deal. I’m not going to take a poll before I react to a situation. I’m true to myself.”***
No false bravado required.
(“It’s just a true test of faith,” Piazza said. “I truly believe at the end of all this, it will make me a better person. With everything going on, it’s been an unorthodox season so far. The best-case scenario is when I come back I can push this team to some sort of postseason. I hope that’s the case.” [May 21, 2003 NY Times "For Piazza and Mets, the News Is Grim"])