The Long Shot

How Mike Piazza went from overlooked first baseman to the best-hitting catcher ever.

- Kenneth Shouler

Mike Piazza is storming. He is part owner of AC Regiana 1919, an Italian soccer team, now losing to Bissano Virtus 1-0. “It’s the 53rd minute,” he fumes, looking at the TV screen behind his desk and pacing across his home office. In jeans and a pullover shirt Piazza is muscular. Even as he enters the Hall of Fame, his build is indistinguishable from the 6-3, 200-pound frame of nine years ago, when he played his last major-league game. His newly boyish face—clean-shaven and friendly, vulnerable and less hidden—makes it difficult to summon those mental images of years past: from mustache to goatee, from brown locks to blond. Running five miles a day in South Beach has left him tanned and more youthful than the 49 years the calendar shows.

Behind him stand 10 Silver Slugger awards, one for each season that coaches and managers recognized him as the best offensive player at his position. The title “best-hitting catcher of all-time” is now synonymous with his name. Now, during breaks from his Steinbrenner-esque rants at his soccer charges, Piazza reflects on his prior life. His baseball life. That drama spanning three acts—his youthful obsession with pounding a baseball, the $15,000 signing bonus that began his 16 seasons in the sun, and his Hall of Fame election in 2016—has spawned an opulent existence in South Beach, Florida, a life of family and faith, professional team ownership and golf. And cigars. A curious blend of truth seeker and engaged citizen, husband and father, Piazza is nothing if not a former ballplayer refreshingly off the beaten track.