In Praise of Mike Piazza

He's in the last moments of his career so we tend to focus only on his decline, but it's worth remembering that Mike Piazza is probably the best hitting catcher ever to play the game. A whole bunch of articles have reached this conclusion, so I won't belabor the point. (For example, look here and here. Bill James reaches the same conclusion.)

There a lot of ways to measure Piazza as a hitter. He has the most career home runs for a catcher and was the best hitter on his team for a very long time. But the thing I will remember is that Piazza hit the ball harder than anyone I ever saw. The barrel of his bat always looked larger than any other bat, and his swing permitted the barrel to whip through the hitting zone at an incredibly high speed. He once hit a line drive to the left-center field wall in an All Star Game (I don't remember the year) that traveled faster than any ball I had ever seen. It reached the outfield wall in what seemed like a nanosecond and was hit so hard I thought it might crash through the wall. It was like a scene out of "The Natural."

It was quite a career for a kid from Norristown, PA, who was drafted in the 62nd round by the Dodgers only because Tommy Lasorda was showing a favor to a family member. Piazza wasn't the defensive equal of the other great catchers, but a bat like his can make up for a lot.