Mike Piazza on Vin Scully: ‘I’d love to see him’

PHOENIX — At the Dodgers’ spring-training complex as a coach on Italy’s World Baseball Classic team, Mike Piazza said he would “love” to speak to Vin Scully.

Scully was at the facility for the Dodgers’ first television broadcast of the spring.

“I’d love to see him,” Piazza said.

Earlier in the month, Piazza released an autobiography in which he said that Scully turned the fans of Los Angeles against him while he was negotiating a new contract. Unable to reach an agreement with the Dodgers, Piazza was traded to the Florida Marlins in 1998.

“I’ve seen some quotes that I was either calling him out or blaming him or whatever, and I don’t feel that is the case at all,” Piazza said. “I don’t think anybody who read the passage from start to finish felt that way.

“First and foremost, look, Vin is a class act, he’s an icon. To this day, I have the utmost respect for him. But the problem is, you have to go back in time and understand that at that point in time in my career with the Dodgers was a very tumultuous time. I was more or less telling my version of the story, at least what I was experiencing. And I said at the end of the book, it’s not coming from a place of malice or anger. I think anybody who remembers that time remembers it was a very tumultuous time. It was what it was.”

On the way to practice field, Piazza walked through a gauntlet of Dodgers fans.

Asked if he was nervous about how he might be received, Piazza said, “Not at all,” pointing to how he was treated nicely at a recent book signing in Pasadena.

Piazza sounded open to returning to Dodger Stadium one day, denying that he has stayed away because he fears being booed. He also touched on his disappointment about not being elected to the Hall of Fame.

More to come at latimes.com and the Tuesday print edition of The Times.

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