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Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

G-Fafif Mar 05 2021 08:56 AM

An appetite-whetting excerpt from Devin Gordon's forthcoming So Many Ways to Lose, seemingly a sympathetic iteration of Chico Escuela's Bad Stuff ‘Bout the Mets. So there they were, Mike Piazza and Roger Clemens, 11 years after the Incident at the Subway Series between the Mets and the Yankees in 2000, infamous nemeses now settling into easy breezy retirement, wedged next to each other on a pair of folding chairs at Michael Jordan's celebrity golf tournament in Las Vegas, live on a talk-radio show, hot mics in front of them. Together again, at last. The key chapters of that whole saga—Piazza's repeatedly owning Clemens at the plate; Clemens's responding like a big, fat psycho baby with a fastball to Piazza's skull, knocking him out with a concussion; then Game 2 of the World Series, the showdown in front of the whole world, the shattered bat, the jagged shard that Clemens may or may not have slung in anger at Piazza, the benches emptying, the near brawl—none of it ever got resolved with a peace accord.They never hashed it out years later, they never put it behind them and they never will. Mike Piazza and Roger Clemens and the broken bat during the Subway Series will connect them forever. So much has changed in New York since then. George Steinbrenner is dead, and so is one of his sons. The Mets—the Mets!—now have the richest owner in baseball, the second coming of Tom Seaver in their rotation, a home run king at first base and Francisco Lindor—Francisco Lindor!—playing shortstop. It's been so long since the Yankees have been to the World Series that they have to ask Mets fans what it feels like. As a lifelong Mets fan myself, though, I can assure that on a genetic level, nothing has changed. Steve Cohen (estimated worth: $12 billion) could buy the Yankees (estimated worth: $8 billion) and make them rent out Yankee Stadium, and they'd still be the Evil Empire. Meanwhile, if we've learned nothing else from the Mets this offseason, it's that they'll always be the Mets. Piazza and Clemens were two of the greatest ever to play their positions, but in retirement their legacies have gone in opposite directions. Piazza can seemingly do no wrong with Mets fans, no matter what he tries, and in 2016, on his fourth attempt, he got elected into the Hall of Fame with 83% of the vote. Clemens, on the other hand, has become the Lance Armstrong of baseball, another straight-shootin' Texan brought low by a cheating scandal, and now Yankees fans talk about him as though he's just a guy they used to work with for a while. Put “Piazza” and “Clemens” in the same sentence, though, and two decades later, every baseball fan of a certain age starts downloading the same video clip in our heads. Until that afternoon in Las Vegas, they had been forced to interact only once, at the 2004 All-Star Game, when Clemens was in the NL with the Astros and Piazza had to catch him for an inning. “That was awkward,” Piazza says now. He's a funny guy, dry and forthright. That night at the All-Star Game, Clemens got shelled, giving up six runs, five hits and two homers, which was magnificent, but it also made things even more awkward. “I think maybe he was feeling the same thing,” Piazza says. “I think we just didn't know what to say.” Before the game, one reporter had asked Piazza whether he and Clemens were kosher enough to do their jobs together, should the circumstances require it. Sure, Piazza said. He could've left it at that, but he couldn't resist sneaking in a quick joke: “I don't know if we're gonna be playing golf anytime soon.” Seven years later, here they were, playing golf together. Not together together. They weren't playing partners, but they were at the same tournament. They were playing in the same place at the same time. After Piazza finished his round, a local sports-talk producer from an ESPN drive-time show called Gridlocked buttonholed him and asked whether he'd sit down for a quick interview. Sure, Piazza said. It was a charity event, after all. https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/03/05/piazza-clemens-and-the-broken-bat-daily-cover

MFS62 Mar 05 2021 09:11 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Somewhere out on the course, Piazza should have thrown Clemens' bag of clubs into a water trap. Later

Edgy MD Mar 05 2021 10:34 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I'm enjoying the hell out of reading this.

kcmets Mar 05 2021 10:51 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I thought it was the ball!

A Boy Named Seo Mar 05 2021 12:21 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Yeah if the book is as good as that excerpt, we're all in luck. Also, why am I surprised still at how much of a dick Clemens comes off as? Like, I already knows he's dick, but still.

nymr83 Mar 05 2021 08:15 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

=MFS62 post_id=57434 time=1614960666 user_id=60] Somewhere out on the course, Piazza should have thrown Clemens' bag of clubs into a water trap. Later

Let's save that for the golf course in Florida where the water trap may have critters nastier than Roger.

Edgy MD Mar 05 2021 09:07 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

That was a really terrific read, although it stays with the notion that the choices there were only to fight or to back down, but there were any number of third ways. Hamilton has a lot of nerve though. You're pissed that Piazza didn't throw down? I didn't see you out there bringing the fury.

Fman99 Mar 06 2021 04:50 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Pretty good read. Made me hate Timo Perez all over again.

Johnny Lunchbucket Mar 06 2021 06:17 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I wanted to write this book but my working title was #LOLMETS I'm jelly

Johnny Lunchbucket Mar 06 2021 06:28 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

for Mets fans at least, the next four days leading up to Game 1 of the Subway Series were pure bliss. I gotta say, I remember walking on 9th Ave the morning of Game 1 to get a coffee (it must have been a Saturday since I wasn't at work) and being absolutely overcome with dread. It was like I foresaw the Timo Perez play and late inning struggles, I just didn't know how they would play out. This is great so far, but I've only gotten to that line

Johnny Lunchbucket Mar 06 2021 07:04 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Really good piece. Will buy book

Willets Point Mar 06 2021 11:24 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I remember getting the Strat-O-Matic board game and recreating the 2000 World Series. I used the exact same lineups, pitchers, and substitutions as the actual games. The Mets won the series 4 games to 1. In fact they Strat-O Mets won all the games the real Mets lost and they lost the game they won. I never played Strat-O-Matic again.

Edgy MD Mar 06 2021 12:12 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I've never rolled a "Pitcher Throws Jagged Bat Fragment at Baserunner" in Strat-O-Matic.

dinosaur jesus Mar 06 2021 12:32 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Willets Point wrote: I remember getting the Strat-O-Matic board game and recreating the 2000 World Series. I used the exact same lineups, pitchers, and substitutions as the actual games. The Mets won the series 4 games to 1. In fact they Strat-O Mets won all the games the real Mets lost and they lost the game they won. I never played Strat-O-Matic again. Strat-O-Matic was right. It was reality that was wrong.The team with the better record lost in every single round that year, in both leagues.

batmagadanleadoff Mar 06 2021 01:13 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

dinosaur jesus wrote: Willets Point wrote: I remember getting the Strat-O-Matic board game and recreating the 2000 World Series. I used the exact same lineups, pitchers, and substitutions as the actual games. The Mets won the series 4 games to 1. In fact they Strat-O Mets won all the games the real Mets lost and they lost the game they won. I never played Strat-O-Matic again. Strat-O-Matic was right. It was reality that was wrong.The team with the better record lost in every single round that year, in both leagues. That's true. And the WS winning Yankees had the worst record (87-74) of all of the 2000 post-season teams. The 2000 WS was an all wild-card WS.

Willets Point Mar 06 2021 03:12 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Yep. That was the point I was trying to make. The Mets were clearly the better team but somehow the Yankees made it look like a romp anyhow. It was so disheartening.

Johnny Lunchbucket Mar 07 2021 06:59 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

That article reminded me of the bad taste Hampton left. History has been kinder to him polishing off an already-defeated St Louis club in the NLCS than to his inability to rise to the occasion when we really needed him in the aftermath of that Piazza shitshow. As I recall it it was an especially passive performance, walking guys with 2 outs, letting the club fall all but hopelessly behind.

G-Fafif Mar 16 2021 11:21 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Another mouth-watering excerpt, this one focusing on the Bobby Bo sinecure, in which the inevitable snark is well-nuanced. Dennis Gilbert, Bonilla's agent at the time, had Mets ownership by the throat. They could either pay Bonilla to poison their clubhouse next season, or they could pay him to go away quietly. Gilbert says the Mets approached him first and that authorship on a contract like that is impossible to untangle. “It wasn't a five-minute call, put it that way,” he said with a laugh during an interview via FaceTime from one of the gardens on his estate in Malibu, Calif. He's cagey about who had the original idea for the arrangement, but it was pretty clearly his. Soon after this deal, he went back to the insurance business because, he told me, there's way more money in it than representing superstar professional athletes. Evidently he is right. In any case, the idea could only have come from the mind of an insurance salesman: What if we defer the remaining money on Bonilla's deal for a really long time, like a decade, and until then you don't pay my client a cent—but then you start cutting him a big check every year for a much longer period of time? Like, say, 25 years. The Mets could spend Bonilla's $6-ish million however they wanted, and then when he was in his 40s and retired and maybe his bank account could use the fresh influx, he and the Mets would be back in business together. They haggled a bit on terms, and here's where they landed: Bonilla leaves for nothing, now, as in, right this minute—GTFO—but starting in 2011, the Mets agree to pay him precisely $1,193,248.20 every July 1 for 25 years, until 2035, when he would be 72 years old. For the rest of his life, basically. That's a grand total of $29.8 million, which is a lot more than $5.9 million. In exchange for waiting a decade to collect a penny, he was asking for an additional $24 million. It was an easy call for the Wilpon family. Their investment portfolio was booming. Their money guy was killing it. They could free up room in their budget and go get their front-line starter, and all they had to do was bankroll Bonilla's retirement. The Mets said: Where do we sign? Bonilla said: Where do I sign? Includes a little Hampton-bashing to make JCL happy. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-16/bobby-bonilla-contract-was-good-for-baseball-s-new-york-mets

Johnny Lunchbucket Mar 16 2021 11:33 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

This looks like a really good book, nuance is everything when looking at the LOLMets

G-Fafif Mar 19 2021 07:33 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Bartolo-intensive excerpt in GQ. The description is to die for. Five pitches into Bartolo Colón's first start in a Mets uniform, I was smitten. I had simply failed to account for the visceral joy of watching a man shaped like a large ball throw a much smaller ball. Colón bulged like a human bouncy castle. https://www.gq.com/story/bartolo-colon-home-run-mets-so-many-ways-to-lose

batmagadanleadoff Mar 20 2021 12:47 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

And every now and then he'd flash a glimpse of what a deceptively superb athlete he was—the classic nimble chunky guy, a favorite varietal of mine, the Chris Farleys of sports. Colón's teammates fell for him just as hard, just as fast. He acquired a nickname—“Big Sexy”—a tribute to both his size and his humble mug. According to the mythology, Bartolo was thin as a rookie in Cleveland and then over two decades he gradually got swole with joy, but this isn't true. His face was long and slender and unironically sexy back then, but his frame was already dense, and by the time he arrived in New York he looked like a Dominican Big Pussy Bonpensiero. I'm definitely getting this book. [FIMG=444]https://img.bleacherreport.net/img/images/photos/003/578/834/3ca47f3ee8ff5089c910b30e77ff4bd8_crop_north.jpg?1456874347&w=3072&h=2048[/FIMG][FIMG=377]https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSvfYjXzp0EdfUcxmzAFhOBLKM2L1Xo0HfoMQ&usqp=CAU[/FIMG]

MFS62 Mar 20 2021 06:52 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

When Big Pussy got on the boat he was a pal. When he got off, he was just chum. Later

G-Fafif Apr 01 2021 12:15 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

One more excerpt. You could lock every fan of the Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, and Colorado Rockies in a small storage locker, and they would kill one another for the Mets' postseason history. In 57 seasons to date, the Mets have reached the postseason nine times, they've played in five World Series, and they've won twice. Yes, it's been a while since 1986, and it's probably true that half the people who had vivid memories of that season are now dead. Still, compared with the genuine sad sacks of pro sports, the fan bases with zero joy, no highs, all lows, nothing to show for their loyalty but a deep dent in their foreheads from slapping them for decades, the Mets' track record for badness simply doesn't rate. It's pretty meh. In fact, amazing and/or miraculous postseason runs are as much a part of the Mets' identity as losing 120 games in 1962. For everyone who cares about the Mets, the DNA of seasons such as 1969, with the original Miracle Mets; 1973, when the “Ya Gotta Believe” Mets went from last place to Game 7 of the World Series in two months; and 1986, a season-long bullet train—right up until they almost derailed twice in the playoffs—has encoded in us this hapless instinct that a reversal of fortune is always possible. It's happened before, and it's happened more than once. It's kind of our thing. The mental state of your standard-issue Mets fan is to be simultaneously certain of humiliating defeat and pretty darn sure there's a miracle brewing. It's not bracing for the worst, exactly. It's bracing for something. Something awful, surely … but maybe not! Mets fans have the capacity to believe in both outcomes with equal commitment. This is very hard to do. You probably couldn't pull it off. You'd have to be special. https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/04/mets-are-losers/618470/

TransMonk Apr 01 2021 12:34 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I finished this book today just in time to be punked by the game postponement. I thoroughly enjoyed the read and highly recommend.

Johnny Lunchbucket Apr 25 2021 07:31 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I read this too. I thought the bit about the radio show and the interview with piazza was by far the best bit. There was some insight into the Wilpons, and some promising stuff on Payson. The second half was like reading twitter, exhausting if I'm honest. DeGOAT on one reference is enough, this guy used it about 100 times. I'll give it a double, coulda been a homer In the final analysis I'm not sure who this book is directed to.

bmfc1 Jun 13 2021 08:35 PM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I read this book and feel that JL's analysis was spot on. I enjoyed the first half, which included a strong takedown of Yogi's tenure, but in the 2d half I got antsy. Maybe that's because I didn't feel like reading extensively about the Wilpons when things are going fairly well for the current Mets. There was also a tendency to say that something was "Metsy" to fit the narrative when it could have happened to anyone, such as losing to the Royals in the WS. The final chapter on Alonso was hopeful and that was a nice contrast to the overall sarcastic and snarky tone. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, I liked it.

Fman99 Jun 14 2021 08:44 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I ran into a buddy of mine Friday night at the Syracuse Mets game. He's a guy I used to work with a long time ago. He is among other things a very big chaser of autographs and selfies with MLB stars. He goes to Cooperstown every year with the intent of getting more signatures and meeting HOFers. He knows, naturally, that I am a big Mets fan. He pulled up a selfie of himself with Mike Piazza, taken sometime over the last few years. Perhaps even at some point during his 2016 induction weekend. He mentioned that Mike was a very polite and friendly hall of famer (he's great at telling you who is or is not a jerk). My first question was to ask him if he asked Mike whether or not Mike was tipping pitches to the batters facing Clemens in that All Star game. He did not ask. I am sure Mike would never admit that he was giving the batters any help. I'm also sure that he was tipping the pitches.

G-Fafif Oct 06 2021 07:34 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Devin Gordon has reported and written a 2021 coda for ESPN. ON SEPT. 14, less than 24 hours after Wainwright had micturated all over their freshly dug grave, the Mets players were back out on the grass at Citi Field for pregame drills, and goodness, they sure were cheerful. Goofing around. Taking grounders at positions they don't play. J.D. Davis and left fielder Dom Smith took turns seeing who could wing the ball the furthest into the black seats in center field. Davis went first, then laughed as Smith took a 15-foot running start. Look, nobody likes the Intensity Police. Nobody needs to be flipping tables in the clubhouse or cussing out teammates, but couldn't they at least perform some fury? Some disappointment? Here I was, a grown man with two kids, just a dopey fan, and I'd been in a funk all day. People's jobs were on the line. Manager Luis Rojas, who they'd professed to love, was about to get fired because they couldn't hit. Right fielder Michael Conforto, who cracked two home runs as a rookie in Game 4 of the 2015 World Series and in a just universe would retire a Met, might be playing somewhere else next season. This was bad, fellas. This Mets team is not lazy. They love to play, and they love to win. Lord knows they have flaws, but a lack of hustle isn't one of them. They played 66 one-run games, and their extra-inning record was 11-7. For three seasons now, a hallmark of this team has been battling to the last out, sacrificing your nasal cavity to get on base and tearing off the jersey of the hero who wins it. Following a walk-off victory in May, not one but two Mets, Pete Alonso and pitcher David Peterson, fell on their faces trying to hurdle the dugout rail. One of the reasons those boos so offended Baez, in particular, is because it's not like Lindor wasn't trying. This isn't about effort. It's about temperament. The 2021 Mets just didn't have a mean streak. They're a bunch of swell guys who got along great and had a blast playing baseball. Some nerve, right? It's heartbreaking to love a team that's just not good enough, which is why Mets fans feel more gutted than usual this time of year. We don't expect rings, obviously. A fun ride that gives us some laughs and thrills and groans -- that'll do just fine. Chaos surrounded this team, but on the field and in the clubhouse, they were easy breezy, lemon squeezy. If anything, this group of Mets liked each other too much. Folks in sports tend to speak about leadership in facile ways. Winning clubhouses don't have one leader; they have three or four, each of whom leads in their own style. The Mets clubhouse is filled with leaders, but temperamentally they're all like-minded. Alonso is positivity incarnate. Brandon Nimmo is the happiest man ever to wear a Mets uniform. Lindor had a huge smile even while cutting me off to end an interview. ("Brother," he said, with a gentle hand on my shoulder, "I gotta go.") Everyone loves Dom Smith, and Dom Smith loves everyone. Marcus Stroman, an absolute warrior, a student of pitching, a superb athlete and the MVP of this Mets season, will block you on Twitter if you bring any bad vibes into his feed. (Please don't block me, Stro, I love u.) It was a sealed cocoon of optimism and self-belief, and they had such faith that chemistry equals winning that at times they didn't seem to notice their season was slipping away. As the 2021 Mets crumbled on the field, fans were feasting on a new 30 for 30 series about the 1986 World Champion Mets, "Once Upon a Time in Queens," and at times I felt like I was watching a four-hour MRI on the spinal column of the current Mets. Who is the Keith Hernandez in this bunch? Where is the Gary Carter? "I think that's probably the one guy we might've been missing this year, is the [guy who says] 'OK, that's enough, it's time to get down to business,'" reliever Aaron Loup told me. "Because we all know everybody's trying, and you always get the rah-rah, 'next game, you got this' stuff. But at some point you need, 'OK, enough. It's time to go, now.'" In the delicate balance of clubhouse construction, guys like Loup, who played in the 2020 World Series with Tampa Bay, who loves Busch Light so much he's got the T-shirt to prove it, are as indispensable as the Keith's and Gary's. His season out of the bullpen was downright deGromian -- 0.95 ERA over 65 appearances. This is about what the Mets were missing, not what they had. "We don't really have one guy who's getting after people," McNeil told me. "Maybe it's something we do need." Is it essential to win? Maybe, maybe not, he said. He hasn't won anything yet. He knows this much: "I've never really had that on the Mets. Three or four years, I've never really had that." https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32344914/a-fan-guide-abiding-lol-mets

Edgy MD Oct 06 2021 08:34 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

It's nitpicking over analogies but it doesn't sound like the team is lacking a Keith Hernandez and a Gary Carter. It sounds like they have a surfeit of Carters and it's Hernandez, Knight, and maybe Mookie that they lack. Who knows? We call it chemistry, but chemistry is a hard science with laws. What makes a team a cohesive and effective unit is a lot more fuzzy.

Ceetar Oct 06 2021 10:06 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

I was 4 at the time, so who knows, but as the years go on it seems pretty clear to me that the '86 Mets were excellent ballplayers who constantly got in their own way. Things just fell right in '86, but there's no need to 1:1 a clubhouse from 2021 to 1986. We've made some of those guys into archetypes of 'clubhouse chemistry' that probably didn't even apply to them at the time. They didn't perform fury for pre-game media? bit whoop. I don't know what, if there was even a singular thing, that made this all go wrong this year, but it wasn't that. Did not jibing with leadership on workout routines play in? perhaps. Not taking simple medical advice to keep teammates safe and allow them to see their families and friends more is "everyone getting along"? Nevermind whatever you may or may not believe about McNeil and Lindor.

G-Fafif Oct 06 2021 10:11 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Did not jibing with leadership on workout routines play in? I love when people use "jibe" or "jibing" correctly. You wouldn't believe how often I see it as "jive" or "jiving".

Ceetar Oct 06 2021 10:46 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

Did not jibing with leadership on workout routines play in? I love when people use "jibe" or "jibing" correctly. You wouldn't believe how often I see it as "jive" or "jiving". i just tell myself "the one you want is wrong, you want the other one" This is also how I differentiate the _ from the - on mobile.

Edgy MD Oct 06 2021 11:04 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

This mighta been a good deposit in the Post-Mortem thread as well.

TransMonk Oct 22 2021 08:04 AM Re: Piazza vs. Clemens Goes to Vegas

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