Until it falls apart (and I know from experience it will, for this is the second one I’ve had), I carry with me to ballgames a promotional day sports bag that has the motto CATCH THE ENERGY printed above the script Mets logo. How vintage does that make it? Vintage enough so that it also features an ad on a side panel urging people to use the phone book.

Both are tipoffs that this is a pretty old bag. It’s from 2004, when handfuls of fingers still roamed the Yellow Pages and the Mets were going to run their way to respectability, a heckuva goal after the 66-95 debacle of 2003. That was what the “Energy” was about: youth, athleticism, a shift away from expensive sluggers, one of whom was going to be infrequently asked to “Catch”. Mike Piazza was entering the second-to-last season of his seven-year contract. He’d start it as a catcher. He’d wind up ninety feet away on a fairly regular basis before it was over.

I didn’t get to spend as much time on this phase of No. 31’s story in my book Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star as I would’ve liked, in deference to space considerations. So I’ll visit it here, as you can below.

You can also come see me in a couple of places in the weeks ahead:

• Monday night, July 24, I’ll be one of the speakers at Varsity Letters’ next baseball program. The venue is Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St. in Manhattan. The bill is Ron Kaplan, author of Hank Greenberg in 1938; Jay Jaffe, The Cooperstown Casebook; Mark Feinsand, The New York Yankees Fans’ Bucket List; and me. Doors open at 7 PM, the ball talk begins at 7:30, the admission is free, the other salient details are here.

• Friday night, July 28, I’ll be all about Mike and the Mets at Turn of the Corkscrew Books & Wine, 110 N. Park Ave. in Rockville Centre on Long Island. It’s a beautiful setting for a discussion of a beautiful player. Learn more about it here.

• Right now (or as soon as you read this exclusive deleted scene), you can have a listen to Justin McGuire and me going deep like Piazza on Piazza on Justin’s wonderful Baseball by the Book podcast. You can check it out here or find it on iTunes.

***

A little in advance of Opening Day 2004, the Mets hustled Timo Perez off to the White Sox and shipped Roger Cedeño to the Cardinals. There went two more Mets who remembered what it was like to win something as Mets. But back came an erstwhile National League champion, Todd Zeile, signing as a free agent for one more go-around with the franchise that he helped to the World Series. Zeile had played for eleven different clubs, but the Mets had been his only ticket to ride.

The Mets weren’t pointing toward another Fall Classic in the spring of ’04. After the 66–95 debacle of 2003, a handful of upgrades were attempted. Mike Cameron, the center fielder who replaced Ken Griffey in Seattle, was brought on board, as was Kaz Matsui, reportedly a terrific shortstop in Japan. Jose Reyes, despite a splashy debut, was shifted to second. His progress there would be delayed after a hamstring strain put him on the shelf for a few months. There had been talk the Mets would lure superstar right fielder Vladimir Guerrero from Montreal, but it was just talk. Vlad went to Anaheim, so the Mets scrounged together two ex-Yankee retreads, Shane Spencer and Karim Garcia, and declared them a platoon. To Fred Wilpon’s thinking, there’d be enough talent to make the Mets, at the very least, respectable enough to play “meaningful games in September.” It was a term that eluded precise definition and baffled his players.

“What does that mean?” Cameron asked.
“I don’t understand,” Reyes admitted.
“Well,” Cliff Floyd rationalized, “I guess you’ve got to start somewhere.”

Mike was more accustomed to trotting around first than standing in proximity to it for nine innings.

The perhaps meaningful Mets began their season at Turner Field with Mike Piazza on the cover of the schedule and behind the plate, though in the second game of the year, he moved to first in the latter stages of a blowout loss. His first start at first base occurred far off the mainland. The MLB-owned Expos, who couldn’t draw flies at Olympic Stadium and no longer bothered pretending to try, were playing a portion of their home slate in San Juan. As their days in Montreal inevitably dwindled to a precious few (the franchise had briefly been earmarked for contraction heading into 2002), some 10,000 fans in Puerto Rico on April 11 became the first to watch Piazza trot to a position other than catcher to begin a game in the major leagues. He lasted until the eighth, when he was removed in a double-switch. Mike’s first home start at first — and first full game there — came on April 14 at Shea in a loss to the Braves.

As first base morphed from big deal to nothing unusual, some catching business remained. Mike had drawn closer and closer to the backstop home run record, having passed Yogi Berra (306) and Johnny Bench (327) in 2002. Only Carlton Fisk (351) had gone deep more often as a catcher than Piazza, who entered 2004 with 347 and knocked three beyond the reach of any fielder in the first week of the season before shedding the tools of alleged ignorance. Mike sat on 350 until late April when, in a game he was catching in old haunt at Dodger Stadium, he blasted one out off his former batterymate Hideo Nomo.

On May 5, eight days after tying Fisk, the Mets were home to play the Giants. Mike, the starting catcher, batted in the bottom of the first against the same Jerome Williams he strafed upon his return from injury the previous August. On a three-one pitch, Mike golfed at a low, outside delivery and sent it traveling to right-center, “off the big board at Shea,” as MSG announcer Ted Robinson put it, to become “the greatest home run-hitting catcher in the history of the game.” One could debate what it means to hit a home run “as a catcher” versus anything else, but part-time first baseman Piazza acknowledged after the 8–2 Mets victory that these 352 of his 363 home runs overall were “a little more significant because of the physical demands of the position.” The next night, he took on those demands for another eleven innings, then stepped to the plate against Dustan Mohr and hit a two-out home run to end another Mets win.

What really stood out to him, Mike said upon establishment of his record, was being mentioned in the elite company of the catchers he passed. To show their appreciation for his having surpassed all of them as sluggers, the Mets invited Piazza’s now-eternal peers to Shea for a night of recognition. Before the game of June 18, Mike was surrounded by the best of the best: Fisk and Bench, two-thirds of Tom Seaver’s “basic catchers” triad, per the Franchise’s Hall of Fame speech; Berra; Gary Carter, who was finally inducted in Cooperstown the summer before, albeit as an Expo; and, thanks to this being an Interleague contest against the Tigers, Detroit coach Lance Parrish and their current catcher, Ivan Rodriguez. Rodriguez — the second receiver, after Fisk, to be known popularly as Pudge — was essentially Piazza’s American League counterpart, though more readily recognized for defense than Mike ever was. But he, like the rest of the honorees, could hit his share out.

Parrish had just missed 300 home runs as a catcher; he retired with 299, one more than Carter. Rodriguez was at 234, coming up fast on the late Roy Campanella, who finished with 239. “This is a special occasion for all us catchers,” Fisk said. “We, as catchers, can fully appreciate going behind the plate every day and putting the numbers Mike has on the board.” For his trouble, the son of a car dealer was presented with home plate from May 5, framed, and an ostentatiously yellow Chevy Super Sport Roadster…plus his second start behind the plate since May 22.

Piazza’s first home run as a reasonably adequate first baseman — nobody was under any illusion Mike was stationed there for anything but his bat — was rather delicious, considering the context. With one on and two out in the bottom of the ninth at Minute Maid Park on May 16, Piazza stroked the home run that allowed the Mets to tie the Astros and send the game to extra innings. The sweet spot of all that wasn’t that Piazza hit it off ex-Met Octavio Dotel. It was who he robbed of the win by turning it into a no-decision. Roger Clemens, who had left the Yankees to presumably finish his career for his hometown team in Houston, had started for the Astros that Sunday and was in line to raise his National League record to 8–0. Piazza prevented that. Phillips, his successor as catcher, hit the game-winning home run in the thirteenth to make it that much better.

Though Mike was pulling back from regular catching duties, the All-Star ballot still listed him at his traditional position and the electorate voted for him out of some combination of admiration and habit. The game was in Houston and his starting pitcher was none other than Clemens. Talk about an awkward pairing. The catcher said all the right things about this strangest of bedfellowing. “We’re both professional,” Mike insisted. “We both have a job to do.” Yet the pitcher had as dim an All-Star experience as could have been conceived. Clemens gave up six runs in one inning of work and the National League lost, 9–4, ceding home field advantage for the World Series, a gimmick Bud Selig dreamt up the year before to infuse the Midsummer Classic with additional meaning. In 2002, the last time Piazza had played in one of these things, the managers ran out of pitchers and the game was declared a tie.

The quest for September Met meaningfulness appeared on track for a while. The Mets played well in May and June and crept to within a game of first place in early July. Though Clemens was gone to Texas, their three-game sweep of the Shea half of the Subway Series over the Independence Day weekend was veritable manna to Mets fans. It was the first time the Mets had taken a three-game set from the Yankees since the two had begun playing semi-regularly in 1997. And after a slew of first-round picks fizzled or flamed out, the team that couldn’t draft straight at last produced a hint of good things to come with a supplemental pick from 2001. David Wright, 21, plucked with the choice the Mets received as compensation for Mike Hampton signing with Colorado, was called up to the big club in late July and installed at third base. Matsui wasn’t having a very good go of it at short, but Reyes had returned from injury and was starting regularly at second.

The Mets began to fade a bit in the East, so before the chance to compete in September completely disappeared, Jim Duquette pulled the trigger on a couple of deadline deals, bringing in two established pitchers to shore up the rotation: the Pirates’ Kris Benson, who started what was known to Mets fans as “the Melvin Mora Game” at the end of 1999 (Mora was now entrenched as an All-Star third baseman for Baltimore; Mike Bordick was retired), and the Devil Rays’ Victor Zambrano. Benson cost the Mets Ty Wigginton, who had been nudged aside from third base by Wright’s promotion, along with minor league outfielder Jose Bautista, who had just been obtained from Kansas City amid the torrent of trades blanketing MLB at the end of July. Zambrano was acquired for Scott Kazmir, the Mets’ top draft pick from 2002. He was considered a comer, but so was every pitcher the Mets had drafted for more than a decade, and none had exactly come on and stuck around since Bobby Jones.

Wright, en route to fourteen home runs in the first sixty-nine games of his career, proved he fit right away, but the new arms couldn’t hold the Mets aloft in either the division (which of course went to Atlanta) or Wild Card race (pulled out by Clemens’s Astros). Zambrano’s elbow acted up in the middle of August and he was done for the year. Bob Murphy died at the beginning of the month, necessitating a second memorial patch on the Mets uniforms. One had already been sewn on in remembrance of Tug McGraw, who passed away in January. The Mets hung around .500 until thoroughly disintegrating, losing sixteen of seventeen en route to a 71–91 record and fourth-place finish, twenty-five games behind, as ever, the Braves. “There’s no light at the end of the tunnel” was Floyd’s honest appraisal, and nobody demanded an apology. All meaning attached to September and everything directly after would have to be spiritual.

***

The last game, at Shea on Sunday, October 3, encompassed enough cosmic significance for any Mets fan seeking safe passage into winter. The Mets were playing the Montreal Expos for the last time. MLB had just announced the team that brought baseball to Canada in 1969 would move in 2005 to Washington, DC. The Expos’ first opponent thirty-five seasons earlier? The Mets, at Shea. They’d since shared Rusty Staub, Gary Carter and, through Saturday night, 596 box scores. Montreal had won 298, New York 298. The championship of the St. Lawrence Seaway Series would go down to the wire.

Coming around and going around in Game 162 as well was Todd Zeile. Mostly a bench player in his second term as a Met, he was playing in his final game, having decided to retire at the end of the year. The end of the year was here. At the beginning of his career as a Cardinal, Zeile was a catcher. So he would be again this day, despite having not caught at all, save for a recent tune-up in Pittsburgh, since 1990, his second year in the bigs. As his pal Piazza could attest, there’s something about that mask, chest protector and pair of shin guards that stays with a fella.

Accommodating Todd’s going-away soirée was Art Howe, in his last game as Met manager. He was fired in mid-September once word leaked he’d be let go at season’s end with two years remaining on his contract, but in Metsian fashion, he was asked if he wanted to stay and finish out the schedule, and he consented. Fred Wilpon more or less retracted his endorsement from two years earlier: “I saw strength and courage and conviction when I met Art Howe and I said, ‘Let’s Go.’ I take full responsibility that the results weren’t there.” Nevertheless, Wilpon said the dismissal was Jim Duquette’s decision, and it would be up to the GM to choose Howe’s successor…or it might have been until Wilpon and his son, Jeff, reached out to grab Omar Minaya, Montreal’s general manager who didn’t figure to follow the Expos to Washington. Minaya had spent several years working for the Mets and was considered a top-notch talent evaluator. It wasn’t clear what Duquette’s role would be under the new regime or, for that matter, how much sway he held within the current setup. Trading Kazmir wasn’t necessarily his idea, and now that the young lefty was looking good for Tampa Bay, nothing about the deal that sent him away looked good in New York.

Buried deep down in Howe’s bullpen was John Franco, officially the captain of the Mets, but reliever non grata for the preceding month. The closer who had appeared in (694) and saved (276) more games than any Met pitcher was going to be a free agent. He’d given his hometown team fifteen seasons, including one devoted to rehabilitating his elbow. They’d dedicated Days to his three-hundredth and four-hundredth saves. Now, without explicitly labeling it as such, the Mets were making October 3, 2004, Franco’s last day.

It was impossible to not look backward. Zeile got a tribute video. Franco got a tribute video. The Expos got a tribute video. Howe got nothing of the sort, but he’d get paid for the next two years. It was also impossible to not peer ahead a bit. Wright was at third as he’d been every day since July 29. Reyes was back at short, with Matsui moving to second. David, Jose and Kaz shaped up as three-quarters of the around-the-horn alignment for 2005. Piazza’s sixty-sixth start at first, against forty-nine behind the plate, did not seem of a piece with any kind of youth movement a month after his thirty-sixth birthday.

Nevertheless, Mike batted cleanup and collected a hit and a walk, though did not add to his twenty home runs or fifty-four runs batted in. First base was designed to keep him in the lineup all year, but his bat responded only sporadically. On the final day, he and it receded into the background.

In a Ted Williamsesque twist John Updike would have adored, Zeile — Toddy Ballgame, if you will — hit the last pitch he ever saw for a three-run homer. Before Shea fans could bid this thirty-nine year-old kid adieu, he went back behind the plate and made his very final act on the field catching a pop-up to end the top of the eighth. The pitch was thrown by Franco, completing his one-third of an inning and 695th outing as a Met.

Wright homered and drove in three runs. Reyes stole three bases and scored twice. With Zeile having tipped his cap and Piazza having been replaced after five, the last half-inning of 2004 was caught by Joe Hietpas, a Double-A catcher the Mets had been carrying since September 14. Joe was insurance for a catching corps that had been dealing with a wave of aches and pains, yet never got into a game. With a season and a franchise about to wave its permanent goodbyes, Howe gave him a chance to nod hello.

When the Montreal Expos came into this world on April 8, 1969, Tom Seaver was pitching to Jerry Grote and striking out Maury Wills, the Rickey Henderson of his time, in this very ballpark. The Expos won the game, 11–10, the Mets won the World Series a little more than six months later. Nos Amours, as they were known to the fans who adored them in Quebec — dozens of whom who were now lovingly clumped behind the third base dugout — would say au revoir amidst a mélange of defensive substitutions. Hietpas was catching, Bartolome Fortunato pitching, and former Met farmhand Endy Chavez grounding to second baseman Jeff Keppinger, who tossed to Craig Brazell at first to record as final an out as could be. Bilingual baseball as practiced in the Great White North was retired, 4–3 on your scorecard. The finals: Mets 8 Expos 1; Mets 299 Expos 298.

Montreal was done. Howe was done. Zeile was officially retired. Franco signed with Houston, Al Leiter with Florida. By the next time the Mets played ball for real, Jason Phillips, Vance Wilson and Super Joe McEwing would all be with other organizations, and the Mets, as had become their custom, would be sorting through another bundle of new players.

Heading into the last year of his contract, all that remained of what would be remembered as the Mike Piazza Mets was Mike Piazza.

***

Trades happen to almost every player. Sometimes it’s because they’re worth trading for, sometimes because trading them is worthwhile. Alex Rodriguez, on whom the Texas Rangers lavished a ten-year, $252 million deal in 2001, was by early 2004 no longer judged the superstar who would lead them to the promised land. In February, they sent him to the Yankees, who instantly became prohibitive favorites to return to the World Series. Less than six months later, the Red Sox, who’d attempted to land A-Rod themselves, concluded they needed to shake up their roster and traded Nomar Garciaparra, a shortstop who’d long been considered on the same level as Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. Boston without Nomah was as unthinkable as New England without chowdah, yet within three months, the region embraced the World Series trophy, its Sox having obliterated a three-oh ALCS deficit versus the Yankees on the way, no less.

It was hardly a new phenomenon to realize a player who you couldn’t possibly picture being traded was being traded. The Mets traded Tom Seaver, the Dodgers (and the Marlins) traded Mike Piazza. After 2004, the possibility existed that the Mets could trade Piazza. Mike was the core of those turn-of-the-century teams Mets fans fell in love with, but time marched on and those teams were gone. In the previous three seasons, the Mets had finished last, last and next-to-last. Piazza had done all he could, but as Ralph Kiner — who was traded twice — was fond of quoting Branch Rickey, a team that finishes last with you can finish last without you.

Minaya, charged with elevating the Mets from basement proximity, talked to other general managers about Piazza. It was standard due diligence committed in the name of an extraordinary player who had entered the diminishing-returns portion of his career. The Mets owed Piazza $13 million for 2005. In the age of A-Rod, that was no longer close to being the most anybody was being paid to play ball, but on the cusp of his fourteenth major league season, it was fair to say Mike Piazza was no longer a $13 million ballplayer. Long-term pacts are called “long” for a reason.

As shocking as the idea of the Mets sending Mike Piazza away was on the surface, his status as the main Met wasn’t what it once was. Some would never stop revering him, but others had shorter memories. Mike attended a hockey game at Madison Square Garden in November of 2003. His image appeared on the video screen. It was booed and, low blow of low blows, greeted with chants of “Roger Clemens! Roger Clemens!” Presumably there was a healthy Venn diagram of Yankees and Rangers fans, but still…the guy who hit the home run after 9/11 jeered on ostensibly neutral turf in New York? Talk about legends on thin ice.

A year later, Mike was willing to think about a change of scenery and the Mets looked into it, but in an offseason of change, they kept their longest-running player in tow. Whether he was any longer their highest-profile star was open to interpretation.

With the Wilpons’ blessing, Minaya went big. One winter after Jim Duquette paid homage to defense and athleticism — the marketing slogan for 2004 was “Catch the Energy” — Minaya attacked the free agent market with gusto for both talent and glitter. You couldn’t bring in somebody with a bigger name than Pedro Martinez, and Minaya succeeded in that unlikely quest. Martinez had helped pitch the Red Sox to their long-sought world championship, and Minaya was willing to give him the fourth year his old team wasn’t. Pedro might not be the same pitcher by 2008, but the goal was getting back into the game in 2005, and the Mets were convinced he could pitch them to prominence. His checkered history with Piazza as a teammate in L.A. and foe who plunked him at Fenway certainly didn’t impede their enthusiasm to land him.

No player was more of a get in the free agent market than Carlos Beltran, whose timing couldn’t have been better. A terrific all-around young player who’d continued progressing into his prime, it was clear Beltran was going to be too pricey for his first team, the Royals, so Kansas City dealt him to Houston. Not only did he aid the Astros in their capture of the 2004 Wild Card, he went completely nuts in the NLDS versus the Braves and NLCS against the Cardinals. Houston didn’t win the pennant, but Beltran won October: eight home runs, fourteen runs batted in, a .435 batting average. It was going to take a long and lucrative contract to lure him.

The Mets offered one — seven years, $119 million, a no-trade clause — and Beltran took it. For the first time since Bobby Bonilla in 1992, the Mets had sought and reeled in the biggest free agent fish in the pond. Beltran, though, was younger, faster, more dynamic and less inclined to rub people the wrong way than Bonilla was when he joined the Mets. At the urging of his agent, Scott Boras, Beltran explained at his introductory press conference that the Mets who had been so flat these past few years were no longer those Mets. They were “the new Mets.” The identity gained traction. Combined with David Wright and Jose Reyes, Beltran and Martinez inspired the most hope in Mets fans since the Mets were all about Mike Piazza.

Which they weren’t anymore, a symptom of the passing seasons.

In our final installment of Piazza outtakes, coming Friday, follow the path of a retired ballplayer into certified legend.

When I wrote Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star, I wanted to show what it was like to root for the Mets in the years before Mike Piazza; how different rooting for the Mets became at the height of Piazza’s powers; and what is was like saying so long but not goodbye to someone who’d come to embody the Mets for so long. It’s all in there, and I think any Mets fan who lived through those times or thinks about these sorts of things will enjoy reading it.

Mentioned only fleetingly is another portion of the Piazza experience, the part where Mike’s status diminishes over time, the denouement of his Met tenure, the years between Met megastardom (1998-2001) and ascent into Met legend (2005-eternity). If you read me here, you know I don’t really go in for fleeting mentions, which is to say I wrote a good bit about those years that have kind of gone down the Mike memory hole — after the dramatic home run of September 21, 2001, before he left New York for San Diego — but had to cut much of it for space.

Even icons experience a denouement.

It’s the All-Star break. Mike was a Mets All-Star seven times. And we’ve got all the space in the world here. So during this week, while we peer into the TV in quest of Conforto sightings, I’ll be excerpting some deleted scenes, concentrating on those beloved seasons 2002, 2003 and 2004, along with some outtakes covering later years.

Not so incidentally, I’ll be appearing at Long Island’s most beautiful book store and wine shop, Turn of the Corkscrew in Rockville Centre, Friday night, July 28, 7 PM, to talk Piazza, Mets fandom, Mets writing and whatever else comes up. I hope you’ll join me there. The Mets are in Seattle that night, so the early evening will be the perfect time for a get-together. (A couple of other exciting announcements to come in the days ahead, so keep your eyes on this space.)

***

At Shea, before October of 2001 moved on to its usual autumn theater, there were a couple of moments worth preserving, even if they weren’t on a par with Piazza’s homer off Steve Karsay. On Saturday night, October 6, Lenny Harris pinch-hit in the bottom of the sixth for Rey Ordoñez and singled. It was the 151st pinch-hit of Harris’s career, the most by anybody in major league history. The Mets treated it as no less worthy of celebration than any milestone Rickey Henderson or Barry Bonds produced over the final week. Mike led a charge from the first base dugout to swarm Lenny. Tina Turner’s “The Best” blared from the sound system. The Mets had recently lost the division a year after losing the World Series, two years after losing the pennant, three years after losing the Wild Card. There’d been enough loss in their city lately besides. Harris was a well-liked teammate and his record was certainly noteworthy, but what appeared obvious from the stands at Shea is the Mets needed to end a campaign with something to shout about.

Not that they would, technically. There was one game left, on chilly Sunday afternoon, October 7, the latest date on which the Mets had ever played a regular-season game. Moments before first pitch, President Bush addressed the nation to announce America was launching an assault on Afghanistan, retribution for harboring the terrorists who executed the September 11 attacks. After all the caps and all the flags and every well-meaning beat of healing amid a morass of unyielding pain, the truth was these games could do only so much. Now, at least for the Mets, the games were ending. As Mike said in the wake of his September 21 home run, “This isn’t life and death, this is baseball.” Given Bush’s de facto declaration of war, life and death seemed destined to continue their tango unabated for who knew how long.

With serious real-world news reverberating in their heads, the Mets limped to the finish line, losing to the Expos, 5–0, concluding their mostly forgettable until it was seared into memory third-place season at 82–80. Come the seventh-inning stretch, “God Bless America” duties were assumed by the team as a whole, with Harris and first base coach Mookie Wilson serving as leaders of the choir. “We started off slow,” Piazza admitted. “A few voices cracked in the beginning. I think we were all flat. It wasn’t that easy. But I think we finished strong.”

So the 2001 Mets turned in a mostly off-key performance. Even the severest critic couldn’t say the way they went after it wasn’t heartfelt.

***

Come 2002, team history was on the verge of rebooting if not repeating itself. A decade earlier, the Mets had tried to prop up a faltering contender with a thorough housecleaning and the importation of big, impressive names. That it backfired then didn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t rekindle Met fortunes now.

Thus, out from the 2000 pennant-winners went Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile, Benny Agbayani, Lenny Harris, Glendon Rusch and Rick White. Out from the 2001 late surge went a few more recent contributors: Tsuyoshi Shinjo, Kevin Appier, Desi Relaford and Matt Lawton. In from the outside came Roberto Alomar, the acclaimed second baseman; Mo Vaughn, powerful first baseman; Jeromy Burnitz, who’d grown into an All-Star since Dallas Green decided he didn’t want him around; Roger Cedeño, still speedy and presumably further seasoned since his 1999 stay; starting pitchers Pedro Astacio, Jeff D’Amico and Shawn Estes; and relievers David Weathers, Mark Guthrie, Satoru Komiyama and Kane Davis.

The net Met effect was negative. Various and sundry base hits and decent outings aside, the transformation didn’t take as intended. The Mets were transformed from a team barely hanging on in the race when August began to a team that plunged precipitously out of it before August ended. Shea had less and less spark to it as the season went on. “A team of strangers,” a clubhouse observer called this collection of players. It showed in the standings. Mojo not only didn’t rise, it never seeped onto the premises…and no dogs whatsoever were let out.

Not having merited a ticker tape parade when they had their best shots at it in 1999 and 2000, there was no platform for first base coach Mookie Wilson to revise his speech from 1986 and declare that the 21st would be the Century of the Mets. After that late lunge in 2001 came up empty, whatever early momentum the franchise was carrying in that direction began to dissipate. Yet amid this Met miasma, Piazza persevered. His numbers — 33 HR, 98 RBI — were still splendid. He was elected to another All-Star Game and awarded another Silver Slugger, both honors earned. But without a playoff spot to chase, the sidebars became the main stories. Most bizarre was the topic that burned up the tabloids for a spell, namely whether Mike Piazza was gay. He said he wasn’t. No ballplayer ever said he was while he was still playing ball, but Piazza’s celebrity became a convenient vessel for speculation that arose from a fairly banal Bobby Valentine quote on the subject in general. Baseball, the manager opined when asked, was “probably ready for an openly gay player”. Next thing he knew, Piazza was telling reporters before a game in Philadelphia in May that he was straight: “The truth is I’m heterosexual and date women and that’s it. End of story.”

A more familiar subject reared its ugly head in June when Roger Clemens returned to Shea to pitch against the Mets for the first time since the 2000 World Series, meaning he’d step into the batter’s box and leave himself vulnerable to the payback for which so many who bled blue, orange and black had been salivating. It was a little late for any pitch aimed at any part of him to be delivered meaningfully, however. That World Series was over. Mike Hampton, his mound opponent of twenty months earlier who demurred from retaliation, was ensconced as a Colorado Rockie. Clemens would instead face Estes, a San Francisco Giant in 2000; his team lost to the Mets in that year’s NLDS. The feud had nothing to do with him, but when he found himself toeing the rubber at Shea facing the Yankee pitcher, he did what was more or less expected of him. He threw behind Clemens.

Way behind. He missed an enormous target. Like so much else about the 2002 Mets, it wasn’t a good look. More substantively, Estes and Piazza each homered off the Rocket and the Mets beat him soundly, 8–0, but Clemens going physically scot-free gnawed at the Metropolitan sense of self-respect.

The Mets’ play didn’t elicit much regard, not even from one of their own. Keith Hernandez, an occasional member of the cable broadcast crew, lashed out at his alma mater’s attitude in early September, writing on the MSG Network’s Web site that “the club has no heart” and “the Mets quit a long time ago.” The criticism, no matter how valid it looked to any viewer who’d kept paying attention to the floundering Mets, didn’t sit well with Piazza who fired back that Hernandez was “a voice from the grave.” The announcer retracted his statement and apologized to the players.

Piazza and Hernandez never played together but they were teammates in a sense. While the present was growing ever more difficult (the Mets feinted toward Wild Card contention in late July, trading Jay Payton to Colorado for pitching help, but ultimately went winless at home in August), the franchise celebrated its fortieth anniversary by unveiling a fan-voted All-Amazin’ Team. Keith was its first baseman, Mike its catcher. Edgardo Alfonzo and the injured John Franco, out all season as he recovered from Tommy John surgery, were the only other active Mets to make the squad. Everybody elected was connected to one of the club’s four World Series teams. Though Jerry Grote and Gary Carter had rings to show from winning world championships, by 2002 it was clear no catcher took a back seat in Met history to Mike Piazza.

Then again, sometimes it was hard for the Mets to accommodate their own history in the front seat. The afternoon after the All-Amazin’ festivities, the club posthumously inducted Tommie Agee into its Hall of Fame. While the honor was well-intentioned, the execution was about as bad as everything else the 2002 Mets tried. Valentine chose the pregame period to hold a team meeting, meaning no current Mets — not even their all-time catcher — were in the dugout to witness the enshrinement. Tom Seaver expressed his disenchantment over Channel 11 during the game that followed (another loss).

Valentine fired back a few weeks later, but by then, he had bigger problems brewing. A few fringe Mets were identified by Newsday as marijuana users, which provided Bobby V yet another platform from which to address the media, which didn’t come off very smoothly. The skipper denied his players could be pot-smokers because you couldn’t possibly play ball while high and, to reinforce his point, he took a drag from an imaginary joint, which made for an interesting photo opportunity. Maybe if Joe Torre had done the same, it would have come off as a teachable moment. In Valentine’s hands, the gesture made the Mets look, well, like the Mets. In 2002, that wasn’t the most inspiring of selling points. In any event, marijuana wasn’t a burning issue in baseball until this mini-scandal, but the recently negotiated Collective Bargaining Agreement, agreed to in August on the eve of a strike deadline, did include a provision to implement testing for performance-enhancing drugs, referred to generically as steroids, in 2003.

The 75–86 season that nobody was high on — the first to see the Mets land in last place since 1993 — ended on a Sunday at Shea against the eternal division champion Braves. Bobby Cox sent up a rookie pitcher from Korea as a pinch-hitter. His last name was Bong. The irony wasn’t lost on anybody.

Valentine’s tenure had encompassed so much compelling baseball and an undeniable amount of success, but little of either in 2002. Fingers could be pointed and blame could apportioned, but in baseball, the manager is inevitably suspect, particularly one who rarely shies away from the media when he has something or somebody to criticize. Bobby V’s time was up. Fred Wilpon, who had bought out Nelson Doubleday in August, dismissed Valentine shortly after the final game.

***

On a mid-December weekend in 2002, the Mets broke up what was left of what was once considered the Greatest Infield Ever. Rey Ordoñez — who’d stopped winning Gold Gloves, never really developed as a hitter and responded to booing by calling Mets fans “stupid” — was sent to the Devil Rays. Alfonzo, despite his All-Amazin’ designation, was allowed to leave as a free agent, signing a four-year deal with the Giants. The “team of strangers” was about to grow even stranger.

Who were these guys? The 2003 Mets took shape as names garnered from places most Mets fans, no matter what Ordoñez thought of them, were hesitant to embrace. Mike Stanton, the ex-Yankee, was now a Met reliever. Cliff Floyd, a longtime Marlin, was now the Met left fielder. T#m Gl@v!ne…T#m Gl@v!ne…as much the personification of Brave oppression as anyone who wore a tomahawk across his chest, was now the Met staff ace. They’d join Vaughn and Alomar — plus, for a few weeks early in the season, a pre-retirement David Cone — and be managed by Art Howe, late of the Oakland A’s. Howe piloted the Athletics to three consecutive playoff appearances, yet GM Billy Beane didn’t seem particularly concerned about keeping him around. Wilpon testified that during a search process in which the Mets also considered Lou Piniella (for whom Seattle demanded compensation), Howe “lit up” the room and “blew me away.” He made Howe’s hiring official the day after the Angels defeated the Giants in a seven-game World Series.

Within this cornucopia of newcomers, Mike Piazza, thirty-four years old, remained a Met. He was still on the cover of one of the pocket schedules (Gl@v!ne was on the other), still the starting catcher, still the cleanup hitter on Opening Day when Gl@v!ne debuted at Shea in a Mets uniform. Mike went one-for-four. T#m gave up five runs in less than four innings. The Mets lost to the Cubs, 15–2.

The year never got much better. Fifth and last place became the club’s permanent home in June. Attendance dipped to its lowest level since 1997, the year before Piazza joined the team. The Mets commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of the 1973 Mets in July, taking great care to honor Tug McGraw, who’d been diagnosed with brain cancer during Spring Training, but the season as a whole felt more like a tenth-anniversary homage to 1993. The 95 losses at year’s end would be the most the Mets piled up in a decade. All six Subway Series games, including one started in the Bronx by Clemens, went the unstoppable Yankees’ way (though the 2003 World Series wouldn’t; they’d lose it to the surprising Marlins in six). Turnover turned staggering. Acting as sellers instead of buyers, the Mets whisked away players by the fistful. Alomar, Burnitz and — after 160 saves overshadowed by a few too many critical leads that got away late — Armando Benitez were among those swapped for prospects. The GM trading them was not Steve Phillips, who took his share of responsibility when he was axed in June, but newly elevated assistant general manager Jim Duquette.

Piazza missed the bulk of the fun, such as it was. A horrific groin injury in which muscle tore away from bone was sustained during an at-bat May 16 at San Francisco, sidelining Mike for three months. That it occurred while Piazza was standing beside and not crouching behind the plate was ironic in light of developments the week before. Howe, who upon his hiring waved away the possibility of moving Mike to first base (“as long as he’s doing the job behind the dish, he’s going to be there”), let MSG know he was, in fact, contemplating a position switch for his superstar. What had changed from December to May was the availability of Vaughn. Mo’s arthritic knee eliminated him from the lineup, the active roster and, eventually, playing any more baseball. The Mets needed a first baseman. They had Mike Piazza.

Asking a highly decorated catcher to take on a new position late in his career wasn’t an absurd notion. Every time a clip of Bill Mazeroski’s World Series-winning homer from 1960 aired, the accompanying radio call from Chuck Thompson included “back to the wall goes Berra.” Yogi didn’t rush hundreds of feet from behind the plate to chase it down; he was playing left field for the Yankees. In his final three seasons with the Reds, Johnny Bench started more than 200 games at third and first. Carlton Fisk played a little first base and left field in addition to DH’ing for the White Sox. If the two All-Century catchers and the one who caught more games than any other catcher — and hit the most home runs in games he caught — could find other things to do on the diamond, then why not Piazza?

No reason, really, though it would have been nice had Howe brought it up to Mike before telling the media what was on his mind. Art told the press before he told his would-be first baseman of his position-switching plans, and that didn’t sit well with the Met of Mets. It didn’t help matters that the season was more than a month underway and nobody had asked Piazza to try his hand at first during Spring Training. He had last played it for an inning in 1993, having otherwise devoted himself to catching once it became his only conceivable path to the majors. Nevertheless, he said he told Howe and then-GM Phillips, “I’ll do whatever you think needs to be done for this organization. Obviously, my love is for this ballclub and I’ll do whatever you guys want.”

Soon, all eyes were on otherwise mundane BP activity during the Mets’ ensuing visit to Denver. Mike Piazza was taking ground balls at first base. It was a story. Then it receded, thanks to the injury in San Francisco. While Mike mended, Vance Wilson and rookie Jason Phillips caught. Phillips also showed a talent for first base. Another new face in the infield belonged to Jose Reyes, called up on the eve of his twentieth birthday to fill in at shortstop. It was supposed to be a temporary promotion, but Reyes impressed and held down the position through August, when an injury ended his season, too.

By then, Piazza — having not been selected to an All-Star Game for the first time in his career — was back with the Mets. He returned on August 13 with as much of a bang as could have been imagined. At Shea, against Barry Bonds, Edgardo Alfonzo and the Giants, Mike teed off on Jerome Williams for a two-run homer in his second at-bat…second at-bat in the game, second at-bat in three months. He singled home a run in his next at-bat and drove in two more two at-bats later. Those five RBIs turned the lights out on the visitors and, you might say, the home fans. The next afternoon, New York and much of the Northeast experienced a power outage that left the city dark and the finale of the Giant series cancelled. Perhaps Con Ed should have just plugged into the Mets’ catcher. It certainly appeared he had an ample supply in reserve.

Mike finally met first base under unusual circumstances. In late July, Bob Murphy, Mets voice since 1962, announced he would retire at season’s end. The Mets hastily arranged ceremonies in his honor for the last night of the home schedule, the final game he would call, Thursday, September 25. The occasion couldn’t have felt sadder. The Mets were concluding their second consecutive last-place season and the man who had made all the bad years sunnier by his innately hopeful nature (the Mets were never out of a game by Murph’s reckoning, they were just a few batters from bringing the tying run into the on-deck circle) was saying goodbye. During his pregame remarks, Bob retraced the franchise’s steps more than his own and closed with a farewell and amen that deserved a crowd larger than the 25,081 who paid their way in:

“I hate to say goodbye so much. I know I have no choice. It was a lot easier saying hello the first day we came to New York forty-two years ago than it saying goodbye here tonight. There’s no point in keeping you waiting any longer. Let me tell you how much I love you, let me tell you how great you have been. I’m gonna miss you, believe me I will. I’ll start missing you the minute I walk off this field. It has been such a marvelous, marvelous time. On behalf of my wife, Joye, we both say thanks to you for being so good to us, for allowing us to be a part of your life and for enjoying baseball with us. Thank you very much. Good night and God bless.”

After an appreciative standing ovation, Murphy took the elevator to the radio booth to call his final game, Mets versus Pirates. Piazza took his place behind the plate to catch Gl@v!ne. When Mike looked out toward the outfield, he could find Raul Gonzalez in left, Timo Perez in center and Cedeño in right. Around the infield, he could see Ty Wigginton at third, Jorge Velandia at short, Joe McEwing at second and Mike Glavine at first.

Mike Glavine? Yes, he was related to T#m, and his presence on the roster and in the lineup after nine years in the minor leagues attested at least as much as the Piazza-Lasorda connection ever did to the benefit of knowing somebody somewhere. With this oddball assortment having taken the field, Bob and Gary Cohen called what was unfolding as an otherwise typical 2003 Mets loss. In the top of the ninth, however, it became highly noteworthy. Moving over to play first, replacing Tony Clark, who had already replaced Glavine, was Mike Piazza.

Here came what all the fuss had been about: a liner and two grounders. Three putouts sans incident for the newest Met first baseman. In the bottom of the ninth, Mike would go down as the victim in the final strikeout Bob Murphy would ever call, taking a third strike from Julian Tavarez. Wigginton then grounded to second, ending Murph’s forty-two seasons with a 3–1 defeat and sending the Mets to Miami to play out the remaining frayed edges of their string. Mike caught the first game, the one that allowed the Marlins to clinch the National League Wild Card, then sat out the last two, ending the year with only eleven home runs in sixty-eight games. Further stabs at first base would have to wait until next season.

In our next installment, it’s the year of “meaningful games,” departing teammates and the brink of another era.