PORT ST. LUCIE – He is the face of a team that plays in the biggest sports market in the world, and it’s a handsome face at that. He is a superstar on the field and likable off it. He is a bachelor who has been linked to a celebrity gal pal or two.

He is one magnificent baseball player who works obsessively year-round to improve. He broke a salary record for his class of player over the winter. With nothing more than an innocent smile, he markets himself, his team, his sport.

His name is Mike Piazza.

And his name is Derek Jeter.

Both of New York’s baseball teams are blessed with superstars in their prime who have that irresistible Broadway appeal about them. New York hungers to know what they eat, where and when they eat it, and most important, with whom they dine.

Baseball is hot again and nobody is hotter at center stage, New York, than these two guys.

They are in the same place, but the paths they took to arrive there differ so greatly.

Jeter was a high first-round pick. High fives flew when his name was still on the board as the Yankees’ pick arrived.

The only body parts that were high when the Dodgers chose Piazza in the 62nd round were eyes rolled way up with nods toward the manager’s office. If Tommy Lasorda weren’t such a difficult man to shut up, Piazza might not have ever been given a shot to play baseball for pay.

Lasorda, longtime close pals with Vince Piazza, Mike’s dad, insisted the Dodgers draft him, argued passionately against releasing him, protested loudly that he be given a shot as a catcher. Ever since, one sweat bead at a time, Piazza has made Lasorda look good for doing that.

Piazza, 30, played year-round, going to such outposts as the Mexican League, in a tireless effort to become so productive the organization would have no choice but to keep promoting him.

Along the way, he was made to feel like an outcast who didn’t belong but for family connections. It wasn’t easy, but it had its long-term rewards.

‘The best part about that was there weren’t any expectations for me,” Piazza said of early days in pro ball. ‘It was like I came in through the back door. I was virtually unknown. There wasn’t a lot of pressure like there is on the bonus baby, first-round pick. I was able to work without a lot of fanfare.”

Not that it didn’t hurt at times.

‘I remember one experience in Instructional League,” Piazza said. ‘I liked to hit extra, so I went into the cage and there were a couple of prospects taking extra batting practice. There were two or three coaches working with them. I went up to one coach and asked, ‘Can I get some cuts?” He said, ‘No, this is only for these two guys.” That kind of ticked me off. I channeled it and used it in a positive way.”

He hasn’t stopped using that incident to drive him.

‘You remember those things,” he said. ‘I really felt like that made me a better person and a lot better player. Once I started dealing with getting attention and with expectations I was able to keep very well grounded.’

When challenged to prove himself all over again with the Mets, he proved up to it after a rough, boo-filled start.

‘Yeah, it’s almost been like a cycle with me,” Piazza said. ‘It’s been a very unorthodox sort of career.”

Piazza played for three teams last season and will play for one team for the next seven, unless he or the Mets have an unforseen change of opinion about one another.

A seven-year, $91 million contract, a record at the time it was signed, won’t curtail his drive. Piazza is driven to go down in history as the greatest-hitting catcher of all-time. In order to earn that label he must continue to catch for a few more seasons. In order to do that, he must make sure his defensive work doesn’t slip beneath the adequate level.

The Mets were taken seriously throughout the industry the moment they acquired Piazza from the Marlins in a midseason 1998 trade.

‘He makes everyone else so much better,” Expos manager Felipe Alou said. ‘It means even more having a big righty hitter in the lineup. With a lefty hitter you always have that lefty to bring in to face him. Guy like Piazza, who you going to bring in to face him?’ Maybe Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of Game 7 of a Subway World Series? That fantasy entered the realm of possibility once the Mets joined the heavyweight division by trading for and signing Piazza.

He plays in a big place, a city even big enough for Piazza to share with Jeter. Baseball towns don’t get any bigger than that.