F*** Paul Lukas

[ljshorty89]

ESPN Page 2 - Lukas: Good riddance, Mike


I've always been a fan of this guy's "Uni Watch" feature on Page 2 of ESPN, but his recent article INFURIATED me beyond belief. The article is about why he a self proclaimed "life long Mets fan", believes that Mike Piazza should NOT be enshrined as a Met, and why Mike was apparently never that good, and never important to the Mets franchise. What a ****ing moron this Lukas guy is. Here are his reasons, and my responses:

1. When it became apparent that he'd have to move from catcher to first base, Piazza's behavior ranged from disingenuous to manipulative. A classy player would've stepped up and said, "I'll do anything to help the team -- where do you want me to play?" But Piazza kept playing dumb, tossing out quotes like, "Well, management hasn't said anything to me about it, so I really don't know." Right, the whole city of New York is talking about it but you have no clue. Sure. When skipper Art Howe eventually mentioned to some reporters that Piazza would be taking some infield practice at first base and the reporters then told Piazza, he acted all offended because Howe didn't tell him beforehand. Look, dude, just play where the manager tells you to play and shut up.

Yeah. He shoulda shut his mouth, but the guy was born and bred a catcher, had never played first base, and should never have been shoved there mid season.

2. One reason he didn't want to play first base was that he was obsessed with that stupid record for most home runs hit by a catcher -- a record that exactly one person in town cared about. Can you guess who that one person was? (Hint: Rhymes with "Mike Piazza.")

Yeah, it was a dumb record, but every Met fan cared enough about it to root for it, and to talk about it ever since(Tucker going back to the wall....etc).

3. Of course, once Piazza finally played first base, we found out the real reason why he'd been avoiding the issue: The guy's a horrible athlete. Great hitter, yes, but not a good athlete. No coordination, no footwork. And it went way beyond his inability to play first base. I defy anyone to find one instance -- one single instance -- of Mike Piazza properly executing a slide into second or third base. Never happened. Why? Get this: MIKE PIAZZA CAN'T SLIDE. It's true. When he tried to slide, he'd spaz out and trip. Really!

Piazza was always a catcher, of course he couldn't play first base well with no training. It's not like first base is where you put your morons who can't play anywhere else. It is actually a much tougher position than people realize. Mike Piazza was a decent slider. He was no Rickey Henderson, but the guy did NOT trip every time he slid. I saw him slide plenty of times properly. He doesn't even support this with video clips, images, or anything.

4. When the New York Post implied that Piazza was gay, he held that little press conference where he declared his heterosexuality. OK, fine. But he missed a huge opportunity to say, "But what if it was true? What if I was gay? So what? What if one of my teammates is gay? What if one of YOU is gay? It's no big deal. Listen, I'm straight, but this whole thing is really a nonissue." In a city with a huge gay population, that was an opportunity to show some real community leadership, and he totally spit the bit.

This is just retarded. It's not Piazza's responsibility to do that. Yes, it would have been nice, but him not discussing the idea of gays in the sport does not make him a bad person, and is not a reason to refuse to associate your franchise with him.

5. A few days after Roger Clemens beaned him in 2000, Piazza said that the incident had made him reassess the DH. "I thought the DH could be a good thing for me later in my career," he said, "but now I see that it's bad for baseball, because the pitcher can throw at the batter with no fear of retaliation." So what did he do after leaving the Mets? He shopped himself to American League teams with hopes of becoming a DH. None of them were interested, so he signed with the Padres, but then he went to the A's, where he happily DH'd. Hypocrite.

He signed with the Padres because no AL team offered him a contract. Then, he signed with the A's because I'm sure no other NL teams offered him a contract. What do you want the guy to do, not take his only chance to play the game he loves?

6. "The runner goes, here's the throw from Piazza -- and it comes in on two hops."

Yes, he had a terrible arm. But if you ask any pitcher he caught, they will tell you that he called a great game, blocked pitches in the dirt, blocked the plate, and caught pop ups as well as any other catcher of the time. He was actually a pretty good defensive catcher(save for the ONE aspect, throwing).


Not to mention that Piazza came here in 1998, when the Mets were pretty mediocre. He took us to the NLCS the following year, and the World Series 2 years later. Piazza was the face of this team from the moment he came here until the day he left. He carried fans through the tough times of 2001-2004. The team was not exciting, the players sucked, but people came to see him. He got 2 standing ovations of 5 minutes or more during his final game as a Met. He got 2 ovations AS A VISITING PLAYER in his first game back, and I believe 2 CURTAIN CALLS AS A VISITING PLAYER the following night after TWO HOMERUNS. ON THE ROAD! The guy was beloved. I can still remember tears in people's eyes when he hit the homerun to win the game in the first game after 9/11. Not to mention his 3 run HR to cap a 10 run inning in the comeback against the Braves in 2000. The guy should certainly be enshrined as a Met, and Mets fans should be ECSTATIC.

[ljshorty89]

For the record, I realize it's on Page 2, and may have been meant as sarcasm. But if so, it's retarded.