Well-said, blog brother. (If you just got here and want to know what I'm going on about, skip down a bit.)
I'll go a step further and say that while I'll always have an extra-large spot in my heart reserved for Mike Piazza, this team is better off with Paul Lo Duca. And it's not just a factor of timing, of Piazza's inevitable decline allowing someone else to take the stage. It's more than that.
Don't get me wrong: As you noted, Mike Piazza lifted this franchise out of the doldrums essentially by his lonesome and became a New York icon. He'll be back soon and the fans better be on their feet. (And to think he ended his first year receiving A-Rod-level boos. The shame!) But while obviously a smart, thoughtful guy, Piazza never seemed comfortable in the spotlight. There was a very revealing quote about him in one of those periodic devastating stories about the Mets, one that appeared in the New York Times Magazine during the wretched Alomar years.
Piazza said his favorite movie was “Patton,” and noted that he'd love to work for a guy like that. Work for a guy like that, not be a guy like that. He didn't want to be a leader, he wanted to be led.
But while there may be born leaders, more often that not leadership is something that's thrust upon people — if you want to stick with your military history, look at Grant, a man transformed by leadership's call from a drunken shopkeeper to the savior of the Republic. It was a call Piazza never chose to hear — he wanted to be an ensemble guy, letting leadership settle on players on the decline and players who didn't deserve the mantle and pitchers with the front office's ear and even relievers.
Lo Duca isn't going to the Hall of Fame. He's not the kind of player that makes you put off the trip to the men's room if he's due up this inning. But in one important respect, he's far more than Piazza was: He leads, and he's not the least bit shy about doing it. There's the clubhouse leadership so ably captured by Tom Verducci in SI last week, and there's the on-field variety, too. Even before the Mets starting reeling off victories and collecting clutch hits and running wild and playing pinch-me baseball, there was something different about them, something new. And it didn't take long to find the source: When the game was in the balance, there was Lo Duca coming out to the mound to bark at a pitcher losing focus, or making sure the infielders knew their assignments. The crackle and sizzle of this team begins behind the plate, with Captain Red Ass. And it's an energy, an edge, that I never saw with Piazza.
I love Mike Piazza. He defined an era with this team and carried us up from nothing to some of the happiest years of my life as a baseball fan. And I want to see his 31 up on the wall with 14, 37, 41 and 42. But this is a better team with Lo Duca. It's not so quantifiable through OPS or VORP or RCAA, but you can absolutely see it in the most important stat of all: W-L. There's a reason Lo Duca is still beloved in Los Angeles and Florida, a reason his old manager chose to wear his number. This year, it's been our great good fortune to appreciate why.
Mike Piazza is my favorite player of all time. But like you, I believe Lo Duca was the best choice for this year's team. Aside from being a leader, Lo Duca is the most consistent player on the team. You can almost ALWAYS expect him to get on base – he seldom disappoints. Then there's the arm…
Letting leadership settle on…
players on the decline — Hundley?
players who didn't deserve the mantle — ?
pitchers with the front office's ear — Leiter
even relievers — Franco
I love this blog. I've a few times considered the entire Lo Duca /Piazza thing, but I didn't know how to phrase it, even to myself. Thank you to both of you for articulating something that I think many Met fans feel but don't entirely understand.
Let's give some credit to Minaya then, who, looking past two more talented (and more hispanic) free agents, made what was at the time, something of a headscratcher.
Oh…and Piazza did not end his first year with A-Rod level boos. He did however receive them well into July…
I agree with everything you both wrote about the great Piazza; while at Shea last night I visited the advance ticket window and bought my first mezzanine reserved seat of the year for August 8th so that I can be among those to give Mike that long standing ovation he so richly earned when he bats for the first time that night.
Eddie Murray was overly surly and uncooperative with the media and thus developed a reputation as a prick. But teammates universally lauded Murray as a great guy. I think Piazza is in many ways the opposite and his reputation as a good guy is a media myth spun by the Mets and the ever-savvy Piazza.
It seems clear to me that Piazza wasn't a very likeable guy and the Mets went out of their way to acquire guys with whom Mike got along but were otherwise useless–Lenny Harris, Todd Zeile part II, etc.
I believe Pedro, Glavine and the rest of them just find the whole experience more enjoyable with LoDuca around instead of Piazza.
“He'll be back soon and the fans better be on their feet. ”
I know at least four who will be, from the time he appears in the on-deck circle through his return to the dugout every at-bat. Hopefully at least one of those dugout returns will be preceded by a trip around the bases, and followed by Shea's first ever curtain call for an opposing player. Such is my respect and, yes, love for the big lug.
Without saying, I'd prefer that we win 5-4, despite Piazza's first-ining grand slam.
I wrote that with Vaughn in mind as the decliner and Alomar as the undeserving. But alas, there are multiple correct answers. Get thee behind me, Dysfunctional Met Years!
Mike, one senses, just wanted to be Mike. If we chose to attach greatness to anything but his swings, that was our business. I wouldn't penalize him in retrospect for not being Paul Lo Duca, just as I would't question him for not being Eddie Murray.
It's like a very sad revival of Match Game. “We thought we were going to win until we saw the next batter up would be…BLANK! Brett Sommers?”
I'd penalize him for that. Mike was a Hall of Famer in Waiting, the face of the franchise, humongously well-paid, the key to the offense, the catcher, and a smart guy. He should have been the team leader — it was his responsibility, and he all but ran from it. Yeah, that's said in hindsight, but Mike was here so long that I didn't realize what was missing until Lo Duca brought it to the table.
Doesn't make me not love Piazza or be grateful for the many, many things he did do, but I think it's a definite flaw in him as a player.
Rare has been the new object of my affection that doesn't tend to cast everything that came before it in a diminished light. For example, to put it in terms meaningless to everybody here but me…
Casey was more affectionate than Bernie.
Hozzie is smarter than both of them.
Avery is friendlier than all of them.
Yet Bernie remains The World's Greatest Cat.
I don't care that he wouldn't lick everybody clean like Casey, figure out how to get from the chair to the couch efficiently like Hozzie or reside on my chest like Avery (I'm actually quite relieved he never did that).
I can't give Bernie a demerit for not carrying some of the admirable qualities of his contemporaries or his ultimate successor (who is definitely the right cat at the right time). Bernie is the Greatest. Always will be.
As is Mike. Mike's makeup did not include holler guy, fire 'em up, charge-leading attributes. When we adopted him from the Marlins' shelter, we didn't adopt him for that. We adopted him because he hit like crazy and (like Bernie) he was obviously a star. If he wasn't Patton when we got him, he wasn't going to start being Patton when it became painfully necessary to have a field general. To love Lo Duca for his brassy characteristics one need not retroactively resent Piazza for being a very, very good soldier and not more.
I usually detest stretchy analogies, but I love talking about my cats.
I think shedding Mike's personality from that clubhouse was addition by subtraction.
And that has nothing to do with LoDuca and his considerable positives.
I don't understand anybody who thinks that Piazza's personality was to the detriment of the Mets — he was the consumate professional, and he bore the New York spotlight and the awful curse that comes with being the “face of the Mets” as gracefully as anyone I've ever seen, or could even imagine. So he wasn't Patton — where is it written that being outstanding in one way requires you to be outstanding in others? Because he's got the big bat, he's also supposed to have the big personality? Mike was a team player, and teams need team players — that's why they're called team players. If there were no legitimate leaders during those years, that's the fault of the front office, not the poster boy the front office created. It's their job to create a mix of personalities — a team of 27 Lo Ducas would work no better than a team of 27 Piazzas. And as Paul shows us, it doesn't have to be the guy with the golden swing getting everybody fired up.
I love Lo Duca. I think he's great for this team, and I'd rather have him than Piazza now, partly because it's too sad to watch one of your heros in his decline. But given the choice between vintage Piazza and current Lo Duca? Don't make me laugh.
A team of 27 Piazza's would probably win about 140 games a year.
As long as none of them had to play first base.
It's a great analogy, and it hits on a point far deeper than anything else touched in this discussion.