By: Stache Staff

Will Piazza be Held Out of the Hall of Fame?

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I’ve read the stories, seen the surveys, and it’s pretty clear to me nobody is getting in the Hall of Fame this year: Too many fringe candidates among the clean ones, too many dirty candidates among the shoo-ins, too many look-at-me voters who claim to be turning in blank ballots out of some misguided sense of honor.

I voted for Piazza. I voted for him because he was the best offensive catcher I ever saw, because he assembled one of the greatest — if not the greatest — offensive resume of any catcher ever born. And though he has long been caught in the vortex of whispers and rumors about PED use, there has yet to be a credible complaint lodged against him. – Mike Vaccaro of the NY Post

Mike Piazza is my favorite all time player and I became a Mets fan mike-piazza-cover2because of him. The second he is finally elected to the Hall of Fame, I’m finding a place to stay in Cooperstown so I can be at his induction ceremony.

But, based upon some of the facts coming out about how some of the writers voted, it looks like I wont be making that trip to Cooperstown in 2013, and that is a shame.

Piazza is the greatest hitting catcher of all time. He could do it all, hit for power, hit for average, get on base anyway he needed and carry a team. He was the heart and soul of the Mets teams in 1999 and 2000 that brought playoff baseball back to Queens after many years without it.

His home run on September 21st, 2001 against the Braves in the 8th inning to give the Mets the lead for good, will go down as one of the biggest home runs in New York baseball history,

His moments even with the Dodgers, the team that took a chance on him as a 62nd round pick, were exceptional with offensive years that no catcher may ever duplicate again.

The people who watched him play know that he was a dangerous player every time he came to bat, and even though his defense was, ok at best, he was still solid enough to catch on a somewhat regular basis for over 10 years.

Jay Jaffe, the famed baseball sabermatrician who came up with the JAWS system to determine the worth of the players eligible for the Hall of Fame has also said he believes Piazza is a Hall of Famer.

The idea of suspected PED use, which really comes from a connecting the dots sequence from some in the Media about some acne on his back, really is old news and nobody has had any concrete evidence about the subject.

No books have been written about it, he wasn’t in the Mitchell Report or been reported as one of the players that tested positive from the preliminary tests in the 2003 season.

The other idea of people forcing players to wait a year at times so they don’t have the coveted title of “First-Ballot” Hall of Famer.is dumb. If you’re worthy in the second or fifteenth year of voting, what made you not worthy the first time or all the times after.

Mike Piazza on January 9th will probably miss out on reaching the Hall of Fame because of suspicion, out dated traditions and simple stupidity from the voting members. That, as I said before, is a shame and much like Mike, it looks like I will have to wait another year to book my trip to Cooperstown

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