With the baseball season not beginning this week as it was originally scheduled, this isn’t our big Mets season preview. Instead, we got the greatest hitting catcher in baseball history, Hall of Famer and Mets legend Mike Piazza on Episode 3 of “Amazin’ But True” with Nelson Figueroa and I.
We open the show talking about the impact Piazza had on the Mets and my childhood. No. 31 was the reason I got into the Mets in 1999 and from there, there was no looking back. With Figgie also being a fellow New Yorker and Mets fan, we look at what Piazza meant to the franchise, the city and Major League Baseball’s history books.
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Piazza opens the interview talking about how the coronavirus hits close to home, how he’s been living in Italy for the past few years and what it has meant for his family and the people he knows there. He discusses the special wine he’s breaking out during the quarantine and how he is more of a protein bar hoarder than that of toilet paper, during this crazy time.
We then get into baseball as the Hall of Famer talks about how he would handle the altered-baseball schedule this season, which he thinks should include the top two records facing off in the World Series, without prior playoff series. Piazza discusses his time with the Mets, taking some pressure off other guys, the 10-run inning against the Braves, the memorable home run after 9/11, and addresses how exactly his time with the Mets ended after the 2005 season.
Piazza also addresses going up against Pedro Martinez and the history and competitive nature between them, the trade from the Dodgers surprising him and the trade from the Marlins to the Mets a week later. He talks about his love for guitars, buying them at a shop in New Jersey, his love for drums and if he could be the drummer in a band. The Mets legend then talks about if he takes offense to being known as an “offensive catcher” and why there were other important factors outside of throwing runners out on the base paths.
Catch up on all episodes of “Amazin’ But True,” a New York Mets podcast, by subscribing to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
