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How beloved is Piazza in this town?

mlbaseballtalk Aug 31 2005 09:44 PM

This topic damn nearly got me kicked off the AOL.com Mets Listserv because I dared questioned Mikey's ability to draw seats anymore at Shea and is being overated by the Mets PR hype machine at this stage of his career. Well it was back on 1050 ESPN Radio and the two biggest Piazza bashers, Michael Kay and Don LaGreca were once again greasing the skids for Piazza to spend the rest of his days as an AL DH I swear, if there is a segment that is anti-Piazza even at this point, its thanks to the anti-Piazza, anti-Met press like Kay and LaGreca whom for whatever reason want to downplay Piazza's role all time in this orgainzation Among the points LaGreca makes is that there is no singlular "moment" in Piazza's career where he was the reason for winning a championship Although, when you think about it, whats Seaver's record in postseaon play? Gooden's one big moment is a failure in the 1988 NLCS. Carter might be the only "no doubt, future HOF superstar" to actually make a difference in the Mets winning a championship, so by that logic the "Sacred Post Number" here should be 8, not 41 But thats a whole seperate issue, basically LaGreca's point boils down to the fact that in his eyes (and for some reason he thinks he is talking for Met Nation) Piazza has done nothing that should make him rank with Seaver, Strawberry, Carter, Gooden, ect as the patheon of Mets history Of course I don't know how Kay can be saying that when his favorite guys were legendary fan favorites Bobby Murcer and Don Mattingly, and let me see, how many rings did those two win as a player? Hmmm, oh right, NONE! And these two are considered icons of Yankee baseball. Donnie on the mega level with Ruth, Mantle, DiMag, Jeter, ect and Murcer on that next tier Well, the radio callers seem to be mixed, then again usually callers for some reason tend to agree with the point the host makes on this particular station, but I don't know. Fortunatly fans are beyond referring to Piazza as a "glorified Mackey Sasser" (During Piazza's first summer here someone called Ian Eagle on WFAN and actually ripped Piazza using that line because of his streakiness) and do acknowledge that there is a future HOFer in our midst (unless its found out that he did steriods of course but thats another topc) But it seems amongst the IMC (Internet Met Community) Piazza is beyond reproach and is actually on the Seaver level as greatest Mets of all time, period, end of discussion, no "Well, he didn't do this, he has no rings..." I even heard LaGreca say fans are still mad at him for not charging the mound when Clemens threw the bat at him. I don't know what else to say about this, is the man as beloved as the Internet Met Community seem to think? Are all those Piazza31 jerseys legit, or just still bandwagon jumpers wearing the "cool jersey" Or are those in the media and sports talk radio callers correct in the mixed bag reaction to Mike Piazza's time as a Met. At least I haven't heard anyone say "He's gonna go into the Hall as a Dodger" the way Carter had that Mets/Expos debate. Steve

metirish Aug 31 2005 10:27 PM

]Among the points LaGreca makes is that there is no singlular "moment" in Piazza's career where he was the reason for winning a championship Well that is just a dumb thing to say, Piazza has never won a WS so I don't know what he is talking about,I will only speak for myself here, Piazza is the main reason I am a Mets fan, that and the fact I live in Woodside so going to Shea was easy, he helped put the club back on the map , Piazza will always be my favorite Mets player, plenty of great athletes in all sports didn't win it all, if I were you I'd not bother tuning into Kay or the other fella.

Valadius Sep 01 2005 09:13 AM

Without Mike Piazza, would we have had '99 and 2000?

Sandgnat Sep 01 2005 01:12 PM

11 reasons why Mike Piazza ranks with Seaver, Strawberry, Carter, Gooden, ect as the patheon of Mets history: September 16, 1998 April 28, 1999 July 10, 1999 October 19, 1999 June 9, 2000 June 30, 2000 October 12, 2000 June 17, 2001 September 21, 2001 - (A home run actually made a grown man cry at a baseball game!!) May 16, 2004 July 14, 2005

TheOldMole Sep 01 2005 01:56 PM

Piazza's one of our real good guys. A Metly Met.

G-Fafif Sep 01 2005 04:13 PM Re: How beloved is Piazza in this town? Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Sep 01 2005 10:34 PM

mlbaseballtalk wrote: This topic damn nearly got me kicked off the AOL.com Mets Listserv because I dared questioned Mikey's ability to draw seats anymore at Shea and is being overated by the Mets PR hype machine at this stage of his career. Well it was back on 1050 ESPN Radio and the two biggest Piazza bashers, Michael Kay and Don LaGreca were once again greasing the skids for Piazza to spend the rest of his days as an AL DH I swear, if there is a segment that is anti-Piazza even at this point, its thanks to the anti-Piazza, anti-Met press like Kay and LaGreca whom for whatever reason want to downplay Piazza's role all time in this orgainzation Among the points LaGreca makes is that there is no singlular "moment" in Piazza's career where he was the reason for winning a championship[...]basically LaGreca's point boils down to the fact that in his eyes (and for some reason he thinks he is talking for Met Nation) Piazza has done nothing that should make him rank with Seaver, Strawberry, Carter, Gooden, ect as the patheon of Mets history... Steve Just curious -- you seem to bring up Don LaGreca a lot, not just in this post. He strikes me as a glorified Boy Gary on a Yankee-dominated show on a station thatgenerally operates in a vacuum amid the NY sports landscape. Kay's show is practically the only regularly scheduled local programming they have. Why the emphasis on him?

Johnny Dickshot Sep 01 2005 04:37 PM

I could pretty much give a rat's ass what Don LaGreca (aka: DaDa Dooey) thinks about Mike Piazza, not to mention the "Mets PR hype machine" or AOL users (ew!). Piazza: Good player, glad he came along.

mlbaseballtalk Sep 01 2005 08:20 PM Re: How beloved is Piazza in this town?

="G-Fafif"] mlbaseballtalk wrote: Just curious -- you seem to bring up Don LaGreca a lot, not just in this post. He's strikes me as a glorified Boy Gary on a Yankee-dominated show on a station thatgenerally operates in a vacuum amid the NY sports landscape. Kay's show is practically the only regularly scheduled local programming they have. Why the emphasis on him? "Boy Gary" ??? I bring up LaGreca because he might be the biggest professional media guy who is an admited Met fan on the scene in NYC (I do not consider Joe Beningo and Sid Rosenberg anything more than fans who got lucky breaks when they thought to make a career in broadcasting) Its either Yankee fans, a Giant fan (Russo) or guys who are ambivilant on the topic of who they root for (technically Kay says he hasn't rooted since becoming a scribe back in the mid-80's, but COME ON you can not tell me that anyone (Gary Cohen and Howie Rose included) doing every game for a team doesn't have at least a soft spot in the heart for them) And I agree Piazza does belong on the pantheon, for reasons listed above (plus using the Murcer/Mattingly argument as well) so I am gauging wheither Kay/LaGreca's theories about how diminished the Piazza love-fest is in this town really do hold up, especially when it seems whenever callers call up on the topic they tend to agree with Kay and LaGreca. In regards to the Mets Listserv, two topics through the years, kind of caused me to nearly get booted. One, that I actually got from LaGreca was that when Wilson/Phillips were doing well while Mike was injured was "Why should Piazza EXPECT to have his job when he comes back" using the Pipp-Gehrig angle. And the second was last year when Piazza was hot basically I pondered if Piazza's trade value was at an high and that could have been the last, best chance to trade him for prospects and people were coming back at me like "They'd take a PR hit" to which I shot back stuff like attendance at the night honoring him being the all-time homer run hitting catcher and that I thought Piazza's popularity was declining. For that there were those on the list that thought I was a Yankee Fan Troll! Now LaGreca's rants do seem more of an anti-Piazza edge to them, that make it seem that he never liked the guy to begin with (bringing up the Clemens issue, the whole 1B debacle, ect) I don't know, I wanted to see if there really was an ambivlant feeling about Mike Piazza in Met Nation now that it looks like his career as a Met has about a handfull of games left Steve Johnny Dickshot Sep 01 2005 09:07 PM You need to start talking to folks capable of disassociating the idea of "trading a guy" and "dissing him" as talkradio knuckleheads and their listeners think is the same thing. I will not argue that Mike Piazza will be remembered as one of the very best and most important Met players in their history; and I also will not argue that if at some point over the last few years he could have been traded in a fair deal, he could have. Those are totally different things and they needn't necessarily affect one another. Where you get into talkradio territory is where one bangs a fist on a desk and insists "This guy MUST/CAN'T EVER be traded!!!!111" Or when moves that can be argued for or against with logic and numbers instead are decided upon by imagined weights on magical scale of "Metness"; "clutchness"; "Hall-of-Fame cap-ness," or other pretend criteria. PS: Boy Gary: mlbaseballtalk Sep 01 2005 09:32 PM Johnny Dickshot wrote: You need to start talking to folks capable of disassociating the idea of "trading a guy" and "dissing him" as talkradio knuckleheads and their listeners think is the same thing. It was more the Listserv guys problem there, they did think that it would be a PR hit if Piazza was traded. So it wasn't a talkradio thing. Actually talkradio tends to be split (even on WFAN) in recent years on Piazza, which is what brought the whole topic up in the first place (not just LaGreca) I think the PR hit was more of a "This is not a Seaver trade type of deal" where we were trading a guy at the peak of his popularity and powers and it turns out, according to the Listserv (and here as well I might surmize) that it would be akin to the Seaver deal (or the next level below) By the way, the Listserv is more anti-talkradio/callers than this forum can be, but the people there remind me very much of callers calling in that I often question why they hate radio so much yet act like a caller/host/expert wannabe ]Where you get into talkradio territory is where one bangs a fist on a desk and insists "This guy MUST/CAN'T EVER be traded!!!!111" Or when moves that can be argued for or against with logic and numbers instead are decided upon by imagined weights on magical scale of "Metness"; "clutchness"; "Hall-of-Fame cap-ness," or other pretend criteria. I'll agree with you there, but trading the guy isn't the topic of the disscussion, its more where the guy ranks in the hearts of Met Nation Steve