SAN DIEGO – Since finishing his Mets career last season, Mike Piazza said he has since returned to New York. For him, there really wasn’t much debate.
“It’s in your blood, really,” Piazza said last night. “I don’t really see how you can just kind of go, ‘Well, now I’m not going back to New York anymore.’ ”
Last night, New York came back to him. The Mets were at Petco Park to play Piazza’s Padres, as the former Mets star squared off against his old team.
Piazza, who was the starting catcher and hitting cleanup last night, entered the game hitting .231 with a homer and four RBIs. But the 37-year-old raved about his tenure with the Padres.
“So far, it’s been great,” he said. “I mean, just look around you. There’s a lot to like. It’s a beautiful stadium and the personnel here are great, and the fans have really been very kind to me. I’m excited to be working with some really good young players, so I feel like I’ve taken on a couple of roles here, and the response has been great and I’m enjoying it.
“Hopefully I can play a little better. But all in all, it’s been a great experience so far and hopefully we’ll play better down the stretch.”
Piazza spent seven-plus years with the Mets, taking them to the playoffs twice and the World Series once. He initially said last night that he was “excited” to face the Mets, but later admitted to having some butterflies.
“I’m a little nervous,” he said. “I’ve been trying to downplay it a little bit, but I am nervous. And they’re a good ballclub. So obviously you want to play well, too.”
Piazza played extremely well for much of his Mets career, though his last few years didn’t measure up to his first few. He said there was “nothing but great things to say about [the Mets]” and said parting with the team after last season “just seemed pretty mutual.
“They were obviously looking in another direction and I understand that,” he said. “It just seemed like they wanted to kind of move on in a way that any time a new organization, or at least a new kind of realm comes in as far as the general manager, he kind of wants to put his own spin on things. And it was nothing personal between me and [GM] Omar [Minaya]. It was just one of those things. It just kind of seemed like they wanted to go in a different direction, which is fine.”
Asked about whether he believed he’d wear a Mets cap into the Hall of Fame, Piazza said, “Well, that’s not my decision anymore, but I would like to believe so.”
