Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star

by Greg W. Prince

Overview

A franchise and fan base in perpetual search of validation finally had its ticket punched as 2016 dawned. Mike Piazza, who held records in one hand and a city’s rapt attention in the other, gained election to the Hall of Fame. Within weeks of this long-awaited announcement, the ballclub with whom he chose to cast his eternal lot, the New York Mets, made a date to retire his number.

In Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star, Greg W. Prince—cocreator of Faith and Fear in Flushing, “the blog for Mets fans who like to read,” and author of Amazin’ Again, the story of the 2015 National League champions—explores the parallel paths Piazza and the Mets set out on in the early 1990s and how their individual journeys merged into a mutual quest for transcendence. From marriage of convenience to lifetime bond to a state of baseball grace reached only once before in team history, Piazza examines how the stranger from Los Angeles became New York’s favorite son and why Mets fans continued to rally to Piazza’s cause years after he took his final swing for them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683580089
Publisher:	Sports Publishing LLC
Publication date:	03/14/2017
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Greg W. Prince is cocreator of the blog Faith and Fear in Flushing, the daily destination for “Mets fans who like to read” since 2005. His memoir of the same name—“an intense personal history of the New York Mets”—was published in 2009 and was followed in 2016 by Amazin’ Again: How the 2015 New York Mets Brought the Magic Back to Queens. He has written about baseball for the New York Times, Huffington Post, Yahoo! Sports, and ESPN.com; served as a consultant to the film The Last Play at Shea; and helped organize the New York Mets 50th Anniversary conference at Hofstra University. He lives in Baldwin, New York.

Table of Contents

Part I From Seaver to Piazza 1

Isn't it Romantic: Preface to a Baseball Love Story 3

Plaque in the Day: August 2, 1992 5

Let's Check the Out-of-Town Scoreboard: August 2, 1992-September 1, 1992 16

The Roster Expands: September 1, 1992 25

Part II Emergence & Emergency 29

Spring Awakening: Aprils, 1993-June 30, 1993 31

It's a Family Affair: July 8, 1993-July 13, 1993 40

Endless Summer: July 24, 1993-August 15, 1993 48

A Long September: August 29, 1993-October 3, 1993 53

Part III The Big Dig 67

What Really Happened to the Class of '93?: April 4, 1994-October 28, 1995 69

Used to be their Town, Too: April 1, 1996-October 26, 1996 80

Sense be Damned: April 1, 1997-September 28, 1997 86

Caught Met-Handed: March 31, 1998-May 22, 1998 93

Part IV As Good as it Gets 103

The Commitments: May 23, 1998-October 26, 1998 105

Drama Queens: October 27, 1998-July 10, 1999 120

Life in the City at Century's End: July 13, 1999-October 16, 1999 132

Twenty-Six Innings: October 17, 1999-October 20, 1999 156

As the World Turned: March 29, 2000-October 26, 2000 168

With his Help: April 3, 2001-October 7, 2001 200

Part V Are we Immortal Yet? 211

As Eras End: April 1, 2002-October 3, 2004 213

Going in Style: April 4, 2005-October 2, 2005 216

Slight Return: August 8, 2006-September 29, 2013 225

The Strength to be There: March 17, 2005-October 30, 2015 233

In as a Met: January 6, 2016-July 30, 2016 243

Acknowledgments 259

Select Bibliography 262