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Buster is blah:
]There are times when a star player finishes his career in a strange place, and it all seems kind of sad. Joe Namath with the Rams, O.J. Simpson with the 49ers, Steve Carlton with the Minnesota Twins. Mike Piazza had eight remarkable years with the Mets, and now he is playing for the Padres.
And it couldn't be more perfect.
In Piazza's last couple of seasons with the Mets, he seemed absolutely worn down by the demands of his stardom, something he has never really cultivated or desired. He didn't play with the same kind of enthusiasm that he had earlier in his career, didn't have the same kind of presence on the team.
The Mets and he parted after last season, and he left to go to San Diego, where a couple of 0-for-4s for a future Hall of Famer is not considered a major crisis, where your off-field life generally stays out of the newspapers. I went to Shea Stadium on Tuesday, and some Padres gushed about how great Piazza has been for them, how hard he has played. Manager Bruce Bochy has been careful to rest Piazza, through the use of a three-man catching system. If Piazza was still in New York, there would be stories about his diminished playing time, his fading star power; in San Diego, he can be a half-time player, just another guy, and it's no big deal. He can just be a baseball player.
And on Tuesday, he was able to return to New York as an active player and receive an incredibly warm greeting from Mets' fans. After Piazza finished speaking with an enormous crowd of reporters in the San Diego dugout, he stepped onto the field to prepare for batting practice, and the fans roared. Piazza grinned broadly, sheepishly, looking somewhat surprised and humbled by the intensity of the response. When he took his first swings in batting practice and slammed some balls over the wall, fans cheered again, and kept on cheering for him the whole night. It was all the way you'd hope it would be for Piazza.
David Wright, who is to the Mets now what Piazza used to be, got a couple of big hits to beat the Padres. It's probably just nicer for Piazza as a visitor, considering all the blowups while he was in New York, writes Ken Davidoff. Piazza was deserving of the warm reception, writes Mike Vaccaro. |
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