IN A CAREER OF TWISTS, WOULD MIKE PIAZZA BE A DODGER AGAIN?Byline: KEVIN MODESTI SAN DIEGO San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. - Anybody but Mike Piazza Michael Joseph Piazza (born September 4, 1968 in Norristown, Pennsylvania) is an American Major League Baseball player who currently plays for the Oakland Athletics. He began his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and played for the Florida Marlins, New York Mets, San Diego Padres might tell you to let it go, tell you to stop thinking of Dodger Stadium • • [ as Piazza's natural baseball home, tell you to quit dreaming of Piazza's return to the Dodgers. By October, he will have been a Met for as many complete major-league seasons as he was a Dodger. He will have played in more games for the Mets than he did for the Dodgers. He already has hit more home runs for the Mets than he did for the Dodgers. But having been in the middle of too much craziness to call anything impossible, Piazza laughs only gently as you lay out the logical hop-skip- and-jump that could conceivably bring him back from New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of to Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . He is learning to play first base. ... The Dodgers will need a new first baseman next year. ... The Mets have been trading away high-paid veterans. ... ``That's obviously not for me to debate,'' Piazza said Tuesday afternoon at Qualcomm Stadium Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers • • [ , where the Mets are playing a three-game series against the Padres before making the season's only visit to the Dodgers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. ``I don't really entertain those discussions. I leave that up to other people. I just go out and play.'' Those cliches are based on a decade of hard-earned lessons about the futility of trying to control fate. ``Who knows what the future holds?'' Piazza said as he put on a batting-practice jersey. ``Look at my career in a nutshell. Really, it's been one interesting twist after another. Sometimes it's been fun and frustrating at the same time. ``I've found it advantageous to just worry about (short-term matters such as) having a good road trip and then go from there. It's worked for me. I try not to change it.'' Piazza said he is not, by nature, the sort of person who dwells on where he has been or where he is going. But if he were to be reflective, he could have started during the 76 games he spent on the disabled list this season after popping a groin muscle as he got out of the way of a Jason Schmidt Jason David Schmidt (born January 29, 1973 in Lewiston, Idaho) is a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. On December 6, 2006 he, signed with the LA Dodgers,and received a three-year, $47 million contract. pitch May 16 in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden . He could have thought about how unlikely it has all been up to now, how the 1,390th pick in the 1988 draft has gone on to produce the greatest batting numbers of any catcher in history, how the Dodgers refused to make him the franchise's first $100 million player months before bestowing that honor on Kevin Brown The name Kevin Brown can refer to several different people, including the following:
And he could have thought about how unlikely it is now, how injuries to the highest-priced Mets have turned a would-be pennant contender into a last-place team dumping salaries, how the club's request for a position switch would reach him through the press, how he has been accused of selfishness for not wholeheartedly whole·heart·ed adj. Marked by unconditional commitment, unstinting devotion, or unreserved enthusiasm: wholehearted approval. whole endorsing the move while he's six home runs from Carlton Fisk's record (351) for catchers. With two weeks to go before his 35th birthday, with two seasons remaining on his contract, Piazza is the last superstar standing in a lineup that one day last month included six rookies. It's a situation that might have made him desperate for a trade. But the longest disabled-list stint of his career sweetened sweet·en v. sweet·ened, sweet·en·ing, sweet·ens v.tr. 1. To make sweet or sweeter by adding sugar, honey, saccharin, or another sweet substance. 2. To make more pleasant or agreeable. his outlook. ``The last couple of years here (with the Mets) have been frustrating,'' Piazza said. ``(But) when you start feeling sorry for yourself and your team because you're not playing well, and then all of a sudden just playing is taken away, it's a little bit of a wake-up call. ``The kids are good kids and they're playing hard and they're hungry. So even though we're not where we want to be in the standings, playing with these guys has sort of given me a shot of adrenaline. ``I stay away from looking too far in the future. Short term, I want to become healthy, finish the year on a positive note and just go from there.'' Piazza had just had a mole removed and batted only once in the three games the Mets and Dodgers played at Shea Stadium • • [ in May, avoiding a rematch with L.A. reliever Guillermo Mota, who hit him with a pitch that started a brawl in spring training. Assuming those hard feelings have softened, when Piazza comes to Dodger Stadium on Friday, he will represent what he has since 1998, the symbol of the Fox ownership's failure, the star who got away. ``Even though the years continue to click by, still the reception has been great (when he has come back to Los Angeles),'' Piazza said. ``The people have been very supportive. I always love coming back there. It's a little nostalgic at times. Still, I just concentrate on my job here.'' It's far-fetched to think Piazza will ever wear a Dodgers uniform again. But hasn't his whole career been that way? DODGERS vs. METS Event: Three-game series, begins Friday Time: 7:10 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 5:10 p.m. Sunday Place: Dodger Stadium TV/Radio: Ch. 13; 980-AM, 610-AM, 1330-AM (Spanish) CAPTION(S): 2 photos, box Photo: (1 -- color) Former Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza will return to Los Angeles this weekend as the Mets come in for a three-game series. Kathy Willens/Associated Press, Photo Illustration by Shane Michael Kidder/Daily News (2) Mike Piazza missed 76 games this season for the New York Mets
Genevieve Ross/Associated Press Box: DODGERS vs. METS (see text) |
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