Retire Mike Piazza's Number Right Now

By Jack Flynn
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2008

It all hit home for me about two weeks ago, sitting in Section 24 of the Upper Deck with two friends while the Mets took on the St. Louis Cardinals on a beautiful summer night.

One friend, a casual Mets fan still developing a deeper rooting interest in the team, asked for advice on whose number he should put on the back of the personalized Mets jersey he was planning to purchase. Before I could give an opinion on what players he should consider, he changed the question.

“Where can I get a Mike Piazza jersey like yours?”

Such is the power that Piazza still has over Mets fans, even though he hasn’t appeared in uniform for the home team since 2005. Piazza wore the number 31 with distinction during his 7 ½ years as a Met and few players in baseball history are more readily identified with the franchise.

More than that, Piazza has become singularly linked with the number 31 in New York; no Met player has worn it since he left in 2005 and no Met player should be allowed to wear it ever again. The Mets must take the initiative to retire Mike Piazza’s number before the end of the 2008 season.

Let’s be clear about something. It will not be enough for the Mets to simply take Piazza’s number out of circulation, as they have already done, and retire that number somewhere down the line at a ceremony in a ballpark that Piazza never had an opportunity to shine in. It would be a terrible mistake to allow Shea Stadium to meet the wrecking ball without hosting one last party honoring the greatest hitter in franchise history.

What better way to do so then by retiring the number that so many fans still wear proudly on their backs in honor of their iconic catcher? Shea Stadium was a place that Piazza made electric again, a Hollywood superstar who almost single-handedly dragged the Mets out of the mire they had wallowed in for most of the 1990s.

Piazza should be honored in the building in which he brought so many people joy for so many years, not in Fred Wilpon’s paean to a long-departed franchise that holds no meaning to any baseball fan who hasn’t yet qualified for an AARP card.

How many of Piazza’s greatest Shea Stadium moments are forever burned into the minds of Mets fans? The titanic home run Piazza hit off Ramiro Mendoza in a wild Subway Series contest in 1999. The screamer down the left-field line to cap off a 10-run inning against the Braves in 2000. The deep blast off local kid Steve Karsay into the camera well in September 2001, the first game at Shea Stadium after the terrorist attacks. Every Mets fan has his favorite Piazza moment, and it almost invariably involves a majestic blast struck at the most fortuitous of times for the home team.

More than just a power hitter of considerable might, though, Piazza is unquestionably the greatest hitting catcher in baseball history and will ultimately be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Unfortunately, his baseball career did not end in a matter befitting the greatness he displayed over 16 professional seasons.

Piazza’s retirement earlier this year – announced in a press release offered only after unsuccessfully petitioning all 30 teams to offer him a contract – is an undignified finale to a career that deserved a proper send-off. A number retirement ceremony would be a more fitting tribute to Piazza, and would be exceptionally rare in franchise history.

The Mets have always been an odd franchise in the sense that players usually do not stick around long enough to merit consideration for a retired number. Only 13 players in team history have even worn a Mets uniform in 10 different baseball seasons, which certainly doesn’t leave a whole lot of legitimate candidates for retired numbers.

There can be no argument with number 41, which was worn by only four men before being assigned to a hotshot rookie hurler named Tom Seaver in 1967. To say that The Franchise did his number proud for the 11 ½ years he wore the uniform is an understatement, and the Mets rightly retired his number in 1988.

Seaver was the first Met player honored in such a fashion, and remains the only one to this day. The organization had previously retired two other numbers before Seaver’s number 41 was taken out of circulation. Oddly, both belonged to managers – Casey Stengel (37) and Gil Hodges (14) – each of whom are perhaps better known for what they did with other New York teams then for what they did with the Mets.

Surely Piazza holds a place in Mets’ history at least as prominent as Stengel and Hodges, and perhaps even Seaver. His number 31 is equally deserving of a place on the left field wall with the other retired numbers.

But time is running short. There are only 28 more home games in the 2008 regular season. Mike Piazza deserves one more standing ovation at Shea Stadium, one more opportunity to enjoy the adulation of the Shea masses. If the Mets fail to honor him in the ballpark Piazza starred in, it just won’t be the same.