It’s an incident still talked about more than 20 years later: Roger Clemens throwing a piece of sawed-off bat at Mike Piazza in the first inning of Game 2 of the 2000 World Series.
In the two decades since, Roger Clemens has yet to really fully discuss the incident, but when Piazza joined Carton & Roberts on Monday on WFAN, he reiterated that the past is just that: the past.
“Not really,” Piazza said when asked if he still harbors any resentment. “I saw him at Michael Jordan’s golf tournament in the mid-2000s, and just said hi. I guess life has a way of mellowing you out, so I have no resentment or bitter feelings towards it.”
On Monday’s episode of SNY’s digital series “Like We Never Left,” which is moderated by WFAN’s own Sweeny Murti, Joe Torre revealed that Clemens cried in the clubhouse after the incident:
Still, no actual word from Rocket, though.
“Maybe in his mind he never wanted to talk about it,” Piazza said. “I’m a man, so if he came to me and said he wanted to talk about it, I would, but if you spend too much time wondering what goes on in other peoples’ minds, you just waste a lot of time.”
Piazza actually was a little more irked about some of the other optics of the situation – namely, that it dragged on for two years before any kind of “resolution” happened: June 15, 2002, Clemens’ first appearance at Shea Stadium since the incident, when Mets starter Shawn Estes threw behind Rocket in his first at-bat – drawing warnings for both benches – and later went deep off Clemens:
Piazza’s take on it all?
“Honestly, putting that issue aside, the only thing I didn’t like was that they thought of switching the rotation (in 2002) so he wouldn’t have to pitch at Shea Stadium and hit – but it got to the point where I was like I didn’t even give a crap anymore,” Piazza said. “If it happened right away, we’d have hit him in the back and it would have been over. When it dragged on and became this Roman Gladiator mentality, it took away from the game in my mind, and everyone was trying to wonder who the winner was?”
Here’s to hoping something similar doesn’t happen when this year’s in-season Subway Series kicks off Tuesday at Citi Field…although to Piazza, the Subway Series has a different energy these days.
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“I still think it’s cool, but going back to my era, the games were really intense, and I think the city really stood still. The game Matt Franco walked off Mariano Rivera was arguably the best game between our teams,” Piazza said. “I think the energy is different now; both teams approach it differently, and with the postseason changing, it seems like both teams are going to be in the postseason, which is more important. Back then, there wasn’t as much social media and this highlight mentality, so people were locked into the games and didn’t want to be embarrassed.”
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