Piazza Has Blast in L.A. Return

Why not cheer? It’s not even worth it to be angry anymore, because we all know full well how it is now with the Fox Group Dodgers and 1990s ballplayers.

If you stand up and holler every time the Dodgers take a step away from their past or every time a player turns down a contract that would make him the highest-paid player in the game, all it will get you is a sore throat.

It’s been a frustrating summer for Dodger fans. They’re all angered out. So they might as well cheer for Mike Piazza, the guy who hit 177 home runs and drove in 563 runs in his 5 1/2 years with the team. And they did.

Piazza had a look of resignation to him as well before Friday night’s game, his first at Dodger Stadium since the May 15 trade that started this franchise’s descent from its exalted place atop the sports world.

If Piazza was booed it wouldn’t be the first time at Dodger Stadium, where the fans got on him in April for voicing his disenchantment with his contract situation. And the New York fans have booed him at Shea Stadium for not delivering in the clutch the way a player seeking a $100-million contract should. A few more boos wouldn’t break his spirit.

The Dodgers have fizzled away since the trade, fizzled away to the point that nobody was talking about how this four-game series with the Mets represented the only hope the Dodgers have of making their September games worthwhile. They’re alive mathematically more than practically, so no one bothered to get their hopes up for the prospect of a sweep that could bring the Dodgers to within two games of the Mets in the wild-card race. The only thing that hasn’t changed about the Dodgers this season has been their inability to break away from the .500 mark.

When Piazza said “You can tell there’s a bit of a buzz,” he wasn’t talking about the excitement of a big showdown.

Friday night was about the Return of Piazza and how the fans would treat him. The result was a little surprising. Sometimes in these situations it’s difficult to determine what percentage of the noise and what percentage is booing. Not this time.

It wasn’t so much the sound as it was the sight of the clear majority of the crowd standing and applauding Piazza in his first at-bat.

As for the noise, put it this way: the boo-birds had to struggle to be heard over the cheers. Even the public-address announcer could barely be heard over the cheers.

It was a giant wave of forgiveness for the month of April, despite its contract squabbles, because at least the guy doing the squabbling was a Dodger and not a former Marlin or Expo or Met. As tough as it might have seemed the last time he was here, things sure seemed better than they do today.

And now the guy who used to be a Dodger is getting hot at just the right time, with five home runs in his last eight games to help the Mets make their push for the wild card. Maybe they figured if they cheered hard enough he would forget the past and come back.

On that subject, now that we finally have a full-time baseball commissioner perhaps he can answer this question: if a general manager hugs another team’s free-agent-to-be, is that considered tampering?

Tom Lasorda made the rounds while the Mets were stretching, pausing to grab John Franco in a headlock. Piazza seated some 20 feet away, looked on through his dark sunglasses. Piazza stood up and made his way over to Lasorda, offering a hand. You knew that wouldn’t do for Lasorda. Lasorda wrapped his arms around Piazza as the cameras clicked away.

The whole time Met General Manager Steve Phillips, wary of losing Manager Bobby Valentine and Piazza to Lasorda, kept a watchful eye on the proceedings. Lasorda spent Wednesday dousing reports that he planned to hire Valentine, so he knew better than to fan the flames by chatting with Bobby.

The 100 or so fans in the park during batting practice cheered when Piazza stepped into the batting cage. Lasorda was off to the side talking with reporters and paving the way for Piazza’s return this off-season--with comments such as “His heart is still here, I know that”--when a ball whizzed out toward left field.

“Look at that one!” Lasorda said. “Look!”

It landed on the left-field pavilion roof. Later Piazza launched a ball that bounced off the roof just below the Diamondvision screen. Anyone who saw it couldn’t help but think of the time he hit a ball out of the stadium last year. When he was a Dodger.

At times Friday night it did seem reminiscent of the old days. Fans wore Dodger jerseys with Piazza’s No. 31. Teenage girls screamed, “Mike, we love you.” Another standing ovation followed his home run in the sixth inning.

This is what it takes to feel nostalgic at Dodger Stadium now: a visit from the New York Mets.

We’ve already seen the end of the Dodgers as we knew them. Everything from here on out is an epilogue. No amount of booing Friday night would have changed that. So when they take the next step and send the wrecking balls and bulldozers out to Dodger Stadium, don’t expect any tears.

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The Big Deal / Revisited

A look at the numbers since the Dodgers traded Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile to Florida on May 15 for Gary Sheffield, Charles Johnson, Bobby Bonilla and Jim Eisenreich (averages are through Friday):

* Dodgers with Piazza: 19-22, .463

* Dodgers without Piazza: 48-47, .505

* Mets without Piazza: 24-20, .545

* Mets with Piazza: 51-41, .554

* Piazza with Dodgers: .282, 9 HRs, 30 RBIs

* Piazza with Mets: .330, 17 HRs, 52 RBIs

* Sheffield with Marlins: .272, 6 HRs, 28 RBIs

* Sheffield with Dodgers: .318, 16 HRs, 57 RBIs

* Bonilla with Marlins: .278, 4 HRs, 15 RBIs

* Bonilla with Dodgers: .227, 4 HRs, 22 RBIs

* Johnson with Marlins: .221, 7 HRs, 23 RBIs

* Johnson with Dodgers: .205, 9 HRs, 28 RBIs

* Eisenreich with Marlins: .250, 1 HR, 7 RBIs

* Eisenreich with Dodgers: .200, 0 HR, 3 RBIs