New York Sideshow in Spotlight

Ichiro Suzuki will make his first appearance in an All-Star game tonight and Cal Ripken Jr. will make his last, but the spotlight may shine brightest on the confrontation between Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza.

The New York Yankee right-hander, who will start for the American League and pitch two innings, has not faced the New York Met catcher, who will bat sixth for the National League, since Game 2 of the World Series when Clemens threw the barrel end of a broken bat in Piazza’s direction as he ran up the first- base line after fouling off a pitch.

Piazza and the Mets refrained from a physical response, but the incident created tabloid headlines, resulted in Clemens being fined $50,000 and followed a midseason incident in which Piazza was beaned by Clemens and responded by claiming it was intentional.

Given a chance to start Clemens against the Mets in a June interleague game at Shea Stadium, Yankee Manager Joe Torre juggled his rotation to avoid it, saying Monday, “Roger pitches inside. What if he had hit him? Everyone would have thought it was intentional. I didn’t think it was worth the stress or the risk.”

Is it possible that their meeting amid the looser atmosphere of the All-Star game could bring closure to what has been an ongoing topic?

“I’ve never thought there was an issue of closure involved,” Piazza said. “You have to move on. I’ve faced him plenty of times and had lots of hits off him and he has struck me out plenty of times. It’s hard enough to hit with a clear mind, and that’s what I intend to do, go up with a clear mind.”

A terse Clemens said: “I’ve faced Mike many times. Looking at their lineup, he’s not the only guy I have to worry about. Hopefully, there will be nobody on.”

Met and NL Manager Bobby Valentine said he expected “a great competition between the two. I think Mike will be trying and Roger will be, too. Right now, I can’t say if it will be over or not.”

Added Torre: “I’ll be happy when it’s over, and if this at bat helps, great. I mean, it needs to be over, and maybe if people wanted it to be over, it would be.”

The matchup between Clemens and Curt Schilling, who starts for the National League, comes about 10 years after they had a chance meeting in the Houston Astrodome weight room. Schilling, the Arizona Diamondback pitcher, said Clemens spent about an hour talking to him, “as a father would talk to his son.”

The young Schilling was then a struggling prospect with the Astros and at something of an early crossroads.

“It was one of those conversations your father has when you’re going down a road in life on which you need to make a right turn,” Schilling said. “I’ve always been grateful that he thought enough of me, or the game as much as anything, to take an hour out of his day and talk with me about my approach and what I wasn’t doing and what he felt I needed to do. I don’t want to date him or anything but I somewhat idolized him before I became a pro and our conversation was as much about respect as anything. Over the years I’ve incorporated a lot of what he said about how I approach my job, my family, my life and my respect for the game.”

Cliff Floyd made it to Seattle after all. Not all the friends and relatives for whom he bought $16,000 worth of airline tickets were able to come, and Floyd wasn’t able to get a refund on the unused tickets, but “I’m just happy to be here and have it all behind me.”

Floyd, batting .342 with 21 homers and 70 runs batted in, was selected to replace the injured Rick Reed on Sunday. The Florida Marlin outfielder who had called Valentine “the stupidest manager in baseball” after a lively May series in which both Floyd and Tsuyoshi Shinjo of the Mets had been hit by pitches, made his $16,000 investment after receiving a Tuesday phone call from Valentine that left him certain he was on the NL team only to learn later he wasn’t.

Valentine called it a misunderstanding. Floyd laughed Monday and said, “it’s easy to misunderstand one or two words, but I don’t think it’s easy to misunderstand four or five sentences. My girlfriend was sitting next to me and she heard me say, ‘OK, see you there.’ I was furious for a while, but I have great parents who taught me there’s two sides to everything and you just have to move on. I mean, the first thing I’ll say to Bobby is ‘What’s up? Thanks for the opportunity.’ This is something I’ll always cherish. It’s exciting to know that what I did in the first half didn’t go unnoticed.”

Valentine said he didn’t relent and pick Floyd as an easy or expedient replacement for Reed but because he needed another outfielder given the fact that Larry Walker, who will open as the NL designated hitter, has a sore arm.

“The easy thing would have been to pick more of my own players on this team, but that wouldn’t have been the right thing or the correct thing,” Valentine said. “I was guided by integrity. I don’t think anyone could have done a better job picking the team.”

Neither manager likes the idea of changing the All-Star format to the U.S. vs. the World.

Said Valentine: “I think that baseball is a symbol of America. America is a melting pot, and it is not us against the world; it’s us, period. That we as major league players, no matter what nationality, no matter what country we come from, are all major leaguers, and this should be an exhibit of that unified effort. I don’t like the idea of dividing it up into us against them in any competition.”

Said Torre: “My feelings are very similar. Our game was great and it became greater when it became an international game. With the Asian players, the Dominicans, the Latin players. It’s just been a terrific elevation of talent, and I think the game is flourishing right now because of it.”