Baseball

SoCal, So Cool

The move from New York to San Diego brought relief to Mike Piazza, who's happy to be catching and pounding the ball again

In the four months Mike Piazza has been in San Diego, he has grown out his hair into a scruffy mop, rediscovered his swing and found inner peace. "The last few years in New York were depressing, with my injuries, the team struggling and my coming to grips with the reality that I wasn't the same player I was 10 years ago," says the 37-year-old catcher, who after eight seasons with the Mets signed a one-year, $1.25 million free-agent contract with the Padres last January. "I came here with a clean slate, no expectations. Change has been just what the doctor ordered."

The SoCal life has worked wonders: Free of New York City and its merciless tabloids, Piazza, who resides a few blocks from the beach, has quietly been one of this season's most productive catchers. At week's end the future Hall of Famer, hitting cleanup for the NL West leader, ranked first in homers (16) and 10th in slugging percentage (.525) among major league backstops. "He's rejuvenated, he seems to have a quicker bat and he's handling the inside pitch better," says Giants reliever Mike Stanton. "[Earlier] this season the book was 'Pound him in.' Then he homered off us on an inside pitch."

At the start of May, Piazza was hitting .210 and pondering retirement after the season, which would bring a focus on fatherhood (wife Alicia is expecting the couple's first child in February) and a new career working with his father, Vince, a successful businessman in real estate and import-export. But after tweaking his batting stance--crouching lower and keeping his weight back in order to get under the ball more--he turned around his season and put those retirement plans on hold. From May 12 through Sunday, Piazza hit .330 with 13 homers. "I'm definitely coming back next season," he says. "I think I've proved that I can still play."

Few in baseball thought so last winter, when there was little demand for Piazza--a .319 career hitter with 358 homers from 1992 through 2003; he then hit .249 and 39 homers combined in the next two seasons. He ended his final year as a Met believing he'd wind up on an American League team as a part-time catcher and DH. "I was so conditioned to hearing, 'He's going to DH, he's going to DH,' that I was resigned to it," Piazza says. But, to his surprise, no AL contenders showed interest. Then, in January, the Padres came knocking. Says Piazza, "I called up [family friend] Tommy Lasorda and told him, ' San Diego wants me to catch.' He said, 'You can still freakin' do it. You're in good shape. You gotta do it!' The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with him."

Of San Diego's first 100 games, Piazza started 60 behind the plate; his workload has been closely monitored by manager Bruce Bochy, who has used Jason Bard (.333, 28 RBIs) and Rob Bowen (.292, 12 RBIs) as backups. One day last week Bochy, a former catcher, remarked to Piazza, "You look a little tired," then told him he would give him the next two days off. Says Piazza, "He was right. I was run-down, and though it's tough to sit because I've been swinging the bat well, I know that we have big weeks ahead in September. I have to pace myself."

Though Piazza remains a defensive liability--base runners had stolen 66 bases on him (second most in the NL) and been thrown out a league-low 9.6% of the time--there has been no talk by the Padres of moving him to first base, where 24-year-old Adrian Gonzalez (.306, 19 homers) is having a breakout year. San Diego holds an $8 million option on Piazza for next season, and though he won't be re-signed at that price, the team has interest in retaining him with another economical one-year deal.

Piazza, however, knows not to count on anything. "As I learned last winter, you just never know what teams' situations are," he says. "I'm just taking this day- to-day and enjoying every moment of great weather."

INDIANS' CLOSER