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Michael Joseph Piazza ( ; born September 4, 1968) is an American former professional baseball catcher who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1992 to 2007, and is a member of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. He intended to serve as the manager of the Italian national baseball team in 2020 and 2021 championships, though was unable to do so because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Piazza played most notably for the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers, while also having brief stints with the Miami Marlins, San Diego Padres, and Oakland Athletics. A 12-time All-Star and 10-time Silver Slugger Award winner at catcher, he produced strong offensive numbers at his position; in his career, he recorded 427 home runs—a record 396 of which were hit as catcher—along with a .308 batting average and 1,335 runs batted in (RBI).
Piazza was drafted by the Dodgers in the 1988 MLB draft as a favor from Tommy Lasorda to Piazza's father. He was the last player selected by the Dodgers that year and was the latest drafted pick signed in his draft class to play in the Major Leagues. Initially a first baseman, Piazza converted to catcher in the minor leagues at Lasorda's suggestion to improve his chances of being promoted. He made his major league debut in 1992 and the following year was named the National League (NL) Rookie of the Year and was an All-Star for the first of 10 consecutive seasons. Piazza immediately impressed with his ability to hit for power hitter and average. His best year as a Dodger came in 1997 when he batted .362, hit 40 home runs, and had 124 RBI, leading to a runner-up finish in voting for the NL Most Valuable Player Award. In 1998, he was traded to the Marlins and then a week later to the Mets, with whom he spent most of the remainder of his career. He helped the Mets reach the 2000 World Series, the only World Series appearance of his career. After the 2005 season, Piazza left the Mets to play one season each for the Padres and Athletics before retiring after the 2007 season.
Piazza is regarded as one of the best offensive catchers in baseball history. He had at least one RBI in 15 straight games for the Mets in 2000, the second-longest RBI streak ever. In 2013, the Mets inducted Piazza into the New York Mets Hall of Fame. In 2016, Piazza was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Piazza owned the Italian soccer team A.C. Reggiana 1919, which played for two seasons (2017–2018) in Serie C under his leadership before its non-registration due to continued financial troubles.
Vince's own hopes of playing baseball had ended at the age of 16 when he left school to support his family. He saw that Piazza had potential in the sport, and began encouraging his son to build his arm strength at the age of five. When he was 16, Piazza received personal instruction in his backyard batting cage from Ted Williams. The Hall of Famer praised his talent, advised him not to let anyone change his swing, and autographed Piazza's copy of Williams' The Science of Hitting. Vince threw hundreds of pitches nightly to his son, who shared his father's focus on baseball, clearing snow if necessary to practice his hitting and, after reaching the major leagues, practicing on Christmas Eve. Piazza graduated from Phoenixville Area High School in 1986, after which he went to South Florida and joined the Miami Hurricanes his freshman year; receiving no playing time that season, Piazza transferred to Miami-Dade Community College. Piazza played first base at Miami-Dade in 1988. In 29 games, he hit .364 with three and drove in 23 runs.
Piazza won the NL Rookie of the Year Award in 1993 after appearing in 149 games, hitting .318, slugging 35 home runs, and driving in 112 RBI. He was also selected to the 1993 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, his first of 10 consecutive (and 12 total) All-Star appearances. Until Joc Pederson passed him in 2015, Piazza's 18 home runs before the All-Star break was a Dodgers' rookie record. In 1996, Piazza hit .336 with 36 home runs and 105 RBI, finishing second in NL MVP voting, behind Ken Caminiti. Piazza's best season with the Dodgers came in 1997, when he hit .362, with 40 home runs, 124 RBI, an on-base percentage of .431, and a slugging percentage of .638. He became the first catcher in MLB history to get 200 hits in a season. He finished second in NL MVP voting for the second straight year, behind Larry Walker.
On May 15, 1998, the Dodgers traded Piazza and Todd Zeile to the Marlins in return for Gary Sheffield, Charles Johnson, Bobby Bonilla, Manuel Barrios, and Jim Eisenreich. He appeared in five games with the Marlins, where he hit .278.
Piazza helped the Mets to two consecutive playoff appearances in 1999 and 2000. In the former season, Piazza tied his career highs of 40 home runs and 124 RBI. He also set the record for most home runs in a season without ever hitting more than one in a game, passing a mark previously set by Rogers Hornsby in 1929.
The following year, Piazza led the Mets to an NL pennant and a World Series appearance in the 2000 Subway Series. He became known as "The Monster" after coach John Stearns was caught on tape during the 2000 National League Championship Series after a Piazza hit saying "The Monster is out of the Cage".
Piazza was involved in a bizarre incident during the 2000 World Series. Earlier in the season during interleague play, Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens hit Piazza in the head with a fastball. Piazza suffered a concussion and was forced to miss the 2000 MLB All-Star Game. Clemens was widely criticized by Mets fans for the incident, but Clemens maintained that the pitch was not intentional. Clemens and Piazza would go on to face each other again in the first inning of World Series Game 2. During the at-bat, Clemens threw a pitch that broke Piazza's bat as he fouled it off, sending the barrel and a sharp edge of the broken bat directly at Clemens on the mound just as he finished his delivery. Clemens caught the barrel and threw it across the first base line towards the Yankees' dugout and just past Piazza who was running down to first. Piazza gave a long stare at Clemens and slowly started walking towards Clemens to confront him, and Clemens asked the umpire for a new ball as if nothing had happened. During replays, Clemens can be seen shouting "I thought it was the ball!" and asking the umpire for a new ball multiple times as the two benches cleared and met at the mound. Words were exchanged between the two players, but no punches were thrown from either team and nobody was ejected. Piazza later caught for Clemens when both were on the NL team in the 2004 All-Star Game. Clemens gave up six runs in the first inning.
Piazza's game-winning 8th-inning home run in the first professional baseball game played in New York following the 9/11 attacks has been called iconic, therapeutic, and symbolic. The jersey he wore in that September 21, 2001 game was purchased in April 2016 for $365,000, the highest price ever paid for a modern-day jersey, and is displayed on a rotating basis among the 9/11 Memorial Museum, Citi Field, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
To ease the stress on his deteriorating knees, Piazza began to split his time between catching and playing first base during the 2004 season, an experiment which was abandoned before the end of the season because of Piazza's defensive deficiencies. In addition to being recognized as a great hitter, Piazza has had some notable defensive accomplishments. Among them, Piazza caught two thrown by Ramón Martínez and Hideo Nomo while playing with the Dodgers. Nomo's was particularly impressive because it happened at Coors Field, notorious for being a hitter-friendly ballpark. Additionally, Piazza's .997 fielding percentage was the highest among NL catchers in 2000. Mike Piazza Fielding Stats
On May 5, 2004, Piazza surpassed Carlton Fisk for most home runs by a catcher with his 352nd.
Serving as the Padres' starting catcher and clean-up hitter, Piazza experienced somewhat of a rejuvenation in 2006, batting .283 with 22 homers and helping the Padres to a division title. On July 21, 2006, Piazza collected his 2,000th career hit.
On August 8, 2006, Piazza played his first game at Shea Stadium since leaving the Mets. Throughout the three-game series, Piazza drew frequent standing ovations from New York fans. It was on par with that of Tom Seaver on his return to pitch at Shea Stadium in 1977 and 1978. Even more telling was during that series, on August 9, he drew a rare curtain call in the opposing park following a home run off Mets pitcher (and former Dodgers and Mets teammate) Pedro Martínez in the fourth inning. Not done for the day, Piazza went deep off Martinez again in the sixth. With the Mets ahead 4–2 in the eighth, and two runners aboard, Piazza hit one to the wall in center, nearly bashing his third homer of the day and putting the Padres ahead.
On July 25, 2007, in the top of the ninth inning in a game between the Angels and Athletics at Angel Stadium, a fan threw a water bottle that hit Piazza, who had homered earlier in the game. Piazza pointed his bat in the stands at the fan he believed threw the water bottle to get the attention of security. The fan, who was identified as Roland Flores from La Puente, California, was arrested by the ballpark security. Piazza pressed charges against Flores, ESPN – Piazza to press charges against fan who threw bottle – MLB and Flores was sentenced to 30 days in jail and three years of probation on March 27, 2008. On September 26, against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, Piazza hit his 427th and what would be his final major league home run of his career, off of rookie pitcher Jon Lester.
After not being signed to any MLB team for the 2008 season, Piazza announced his retirement on May 20, 2008, saying, "After discussing my options with my wife, family, and agent, I felt it is time to start a new chapter in my life. It has been an amazing journey."
Piazza was the Italian National Baseball team's hitting coach at the 2009 and 2013 World Baseball Classic. He was an instructor for the Italian Baseball Academy when it won back-to-back European Baseball Championships in 2010 and 2012.
On November 13, 2019, Piazza announced that he would manage the Italian National Baseball team in the 2020 European Baseball Championship and the 2021 World Baseball Classic. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and cancellation of the 2020 European Baseball Club competitions, Piazza was unable to do so.
After two seasons of ownership and a controversial playoff loss to Robur Siena (with a penalty called in the 96th minute) Piazza put the team up for sale. Finding no buyers, and faced with mounting costs, including rent, the club ceased operations in July 2018. In December 2018 the team declared bankruptcy for the third time in twenty years. Piazza and his wife had feuded with Luca Vecchi, then mayor of Reggio Emilia, during their time as owners of the club.
In addition to his hitting, Piazza's defense has undergone a more positive reassessment in light of new defensive metrics. His pitch framing, in particular, ranks seventh-best among all catchers going back to the first data in 1988. Another report published in 2008 put him third among all catchers since 1948 in improving the performances of his pitchers.
Mets teammate Tom Glavine called Piazza a "first-ballot Hall of Famer, certainly the best hitting catcher of our era and arguably the best hitting catcher of all time". On May 8, 2010, while receiving an award, Piazza said to reporters that if he got into the Hall of Fame, he would like to be inducted as a Met, for whom he played seven-plus seasons.
Piazza managed the USA team in the 2011 futures game wearing a Mets cap to the event. The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality by Jeff Pearlman. HarperCollins. New York: 2009 pg 240
On January 9, 2013, Piazza failed to be elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving only 57.8% of the votes and falling short of the 75% qualifying votes. He stated that he would address the performance-enhancing drugs and steroid rumors in his book Long Shot. In his second appearance on the ballot, Piazza's percentage numbers did rise (62.2%), but not to the 75% needed to be inducted. Piazza again failed to make the Hall of Fame in 2015, receiving 69.9% of the votes needed (28 votes shy of the mark). On January 6, 2016, Piazza was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 83% of the vote.
Piazza was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame on September 29, 2013. The New York Mets retired his uniform number, 31, in a ceremony on July 30, 2016, prior to the Mets' game against the Colorado Rockies at Citi Field.
A Pennon bearing Piazza's surname and uniform number is in the background of character Peter Parker's bedroom in the 2019 film . The song 'Piazza, New York Catcher' by Scottish indie pop band Belle & Sebastian is about Piazza. Piazza's autobiography, entitled Long Shot, was released in February 2013.
On May 3, 2013, Piazza debuted with the Miami City Ballet, saying a few lines in the role of a hit man in the troupe's production of Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. Piazza sought to increase the reputation of ballet among sports fans after his daughter attended a ballet school.
In 2023, Piazza appeared on the Fox reality challenge series .
On January 29, 2005, Piazza married actress and Playboy Playboy Playmate Alicia Rickter at St. Jude Catholic Church in Miami, Florida. Angelica Bridges was the maid of honor. Piazza and Rickter have three children.
Piazza is known to be a fan of heavy metal music and is featured on the album Stronger than Death by Black Label Society. He is also godfather to Zakk Wylde's son, Hendrix. He often cohosts Eddie Trunk's Friday Night Rocks show on WAXQ ("Q-104.3 FM") in New York City and was featured as the primary guest on an episode of That Metal Show. He is also an accomplished drummer and has performed on stage with various bands.
Piazza is a devout Roman Catholic. His faith was instilled in him by his Catholic mother and was featured in Champions of Faith, a DVD documentary exploring the intersection of Catholic religious faith and sports. He also appeared in the follow-up video Champions of Faith: Bases of Life.
Piazza is also avidly involved in the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago.
Personal life
Piazza described Dodgers teammate Eric Karros as his "best friend in baseball."
See also
External links
Categories: 1968 Births, 2006 World Baseball Classic Players, American Expatriate Baseball Players In Mexico, Albuquerque Dukes Players, 20th-century American Sportsmen, Baseball Coaches From Pennsylvania, Catholics From Pennsylvania, American People Of Italian Descent, American People Of Slovak Descent, Sportspeople Of Slovak Descent, Bakersfield Dodgers Players, Baseball Players From Philadelphia, Florida Marlins Players, Living People, Los Angeles Dodgers Players, Major League Baseball All-star Game Mvps, Major League Baseball Catchers, Major League Baseball Players With Retired Numbers, Major League Baseball Rookie Of The Year Award Winners, Miami Dade Sharks Baseball Players, National Baseball Hall Of Fame Inductees, National League All-stars, New York Mets Players, Norfolk Tides Players, Oakland Athletics Players, People From Cresskill, New Jersey, Baseball Players From Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Sacramento River Cats Players, Salem Dodgers Players, San Antonio Missions Players, San Diego Padres Players, Silver Slugger Award Winners, St. Lucie Mets Players, Stockton Ports Players, Vero Beach Dodgers Players, American Autobiographers, 21st-century Autobiographers, Baseball Players From Bergen County, New Jersey, 2023 World Baseball Classic Managers
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