PHILADELPHIA – The $11 million-a-year hoagie delivery boy doesn’t take tips. A Philly guy knows where to go, a place where a superstar needs no introduction or entourage to handle the task of carrying not just the Mets’ offense, but the food to the clubhouse.
Vince Piazza makes the pickup at Pudge’s in Norristown, and his son Mike brings in the pregame vittles every time the Mets are at the Vet, where he has hit more home runs (33) than any place not named Shea or Dodger Stadium.
Next door to this place, there is a hole in the ground even bigger than some in the Mets’ lineup, where the Phils’ new stadium will be by 2004, after video at 11 of Piazza standing bat-cocked at home plate, implosion devices set all around him, refusing to vacate the premises so they can turn his home-sweet-home-away-from-home into a parking lot.
This place has been very good to him. Could be the hoagies, but we doubt it (no cracks please about what they no longer do for Mo Vaughn). As much reason as there has been to wonder if the .500 Mets hunger enough for victory, Piazza, the career .325 hitter, remains sandwiched between Vaughn, who has 33 RBIs, and Jeromy Burnitz, who has 30, despite all the lettuce those two are making.
Recent twitches by Vaughn notwithstanding, these numbers haven’t helped Piazza to his usual standards, although the offensively challenged Mets make it hard to tell what Piazza’s are anymore. Last year was the first since 1995 he didn’t reach 100 RBIs, settling for 94. With this season one game past halfway, Piazza is at a not-quite-there 47, despite a recent quickening of pace.
In his last 35 games, Piazza has hit .317 with six home runs and 21 RBIs, good production, but not one of his vintage tears. Two months from his 34th birthday, you wonder if we are starting to see some signs of mortality, beyond the fact that the Mets are killing him, we mean.
It was over 90 degrees at game time for the third straight night here. Tonight the Mets begin four in Florida, where the air will be no less close, and certainly a lot less close than the Mets are to Braves.
Last time the Mets were in Atlanta, Piazza couldn’t make it through a Sunday game in the extreme heat, which fired up those phone lines again wondering why he does not collect a cool extra 80-100 at bats a year as a full-time first baseman.
“It was three days in Atlanta after four days in Florida, a day game after a night game and sooooo hot,” Piazza said. “I was cramping up and starting to see spots.
“I take more fluids now. There’s a supplement, chromium magnesium, that allows your body to better retain fluids. And here, at least you have the tunnel where it’s cool and you can go back there between innings. There is nothing like that in Florida, and the dugout is an oven.”
That’s an inappropriate place for a team whose playoff chances already look cooked, raising the question again of the wisdom of frying your best hitter’s brains behind a mask.
But Piazza has turned down the parasol, the lawn chair and the big drink with the little umbrella at first base to stay behind the plate, at least until Vaughn’s contract runs out in 2768.
Piazza laughed at a list of potential enticements to get him to first, like a window box instead of a coaching box, a wet bar and a plush couch, where virgins would fan him with huge feathers.
“How about a dome over Shea?” he asked.
That’s the idea of a new Ebbets Field that could be built in the current Shea parking lot, but we all should only live that long.
“For that one, I think all I’ll be doing is throwing out the first pitch,” Piazza said.
No way he makes it in uniform, not at this pace.