Mike Piazza has hung up his tools of ignorance for good

See this cover? We remember when we were a kid, 10 years old to be exact when this cover first hit shelves in America. We were still pretty heartbroken that Darryl Strawberry didn’t work out in L.A. because we’d become a bit of a Dodgers jock sniffer at this time. This was the guy who made it easier.

Today, Mike Piazza has officially decided to retire, leaving the game as one of the greatest hitting catchers of all time.

“After discussing my options with my wife, family and agent, I felt it is time to start a new chapter in my life,” he said in a statement released by his agent, Dan Lozano. “It has been an amazing journey.”

We remember when we were Piazza fanboys. It was just before the days of the internet in our life. We’d ride our bike 4 miles to the general store near our house when the summer started. We’d get a footlong hot dog with onions and ketchup only, pretending it was a Dodger dog on many a summer day. We’d then head to the general store and read the newspaper, searching out for the box score that said ‘Piazza C’ and see what it said next to the Blue Plate Special’s stat line. Piazza hit .346 that year.

We miss those days of innocence, and we’ll probably miss Piazza just a bit. He was a hell of a hitter.


Mike Piazza’s all time statistics [Baseball Reference]