October 22, 2000: Game 2 of the Subway Series, at the original Yankee Stadium, is one of the most bizarre contests in baseball history. In the top of the 1st, with 2 out and a man on, Mike Piazza bats for the Mets against Roger Clemens of the Yankees.
Piazza had hit some long home runs off Clemens, and in July, in an Interleague game also at Yankee Stadium, Clemens had nailed Piazza on the helmet with a fastball, giving him a concussion.
This time, Piazza hits a foul ball, and breaks his bat. The barrel of the bat comes back to Clemens, and... he throws the jagged-edged bat barrel across the first-base foul line. Right in Piazza's path, and Piazza almost steps into it.
We may never know what was going on in the head of the Rocket, but what's going on in the head of Piazza is rage. He thinks Clemens was throwing the sharp object at him. Piazza moves toward Clemens and both benches empty. For one of the few times in his career, there's an on-field controversy with Clemens on the field, and Clemens is not the most insane man involved.
The umpires restore order, and Clemens finishes the at-bat by getting Piazza to ground out to 2nd base. He pitches 8 strong innings, and the Yankees pound Mike Hampton, and take a 6-0 lead into the 9th.
But the bullpen can't hold it, and the Mets come to within 6-5, including home runs by Piazza (the 1st-ever World Series homer for the alleged "greatest-hitting catcher ever") and Jay Payton, before Joe Torre has enough and brings in the Hammer of God, Mariano Rivera, to slam the door and keep it 6-5. The Yankees take a 2-games-to-0 lead in the Series, which now heads across town to Shea.
Clemens will be fined $50,000 for his what-the-hell moment. It was absolutely indefensible. He probably should have been suspended for it. Besides, he was probably on steroids at the time, right?
That is the conventional wisdom, aided by Met fans and other Yankee Haters, including the media. But the conventional wisdom was not wise.
Baseball is a game where things happen very slowly, and then, suddenly, they happen very quickly. It takes about 4/10ths of a second for a pitch to get from the pitcher's hand to the plate, and less than that to get at least the 60 feet, 6 inches back to the pitcher's mound, even if it's not hit toward said mound.
When Carl Mays threw the pitch that hit Ray Chapman in the head and caused a fatal injury on August 16, 1920, the sound of the ball hitting Chapman's head -- no batting helmets in those days -- and the fact that the ball came right back to him led him to believe that Chapman had hit the ball. So he threw the ball to Wally Pipp at 1st base. Clemens did what Mays did: Picked up something coming toward him, and threw it. It was natural to think, at first, that it was the ball.
But that bears the question: How do you mistake half of a broken baseball bat for a baseball? It seems stupid. Nevertheless, Clemens told home plate umpire Charlie Reliford, "I thought it was the ball." His actions back that claim up. Clemens may not be the most honest ballplayer you'll ever meet, but, on this occasion, his words were consistent with his actions.
Let's tell the truth: Clemens did not throw the bat at Piazza. He threw it across the foul line. Look at the video: Once the bat left Piazza's hands, he and it never came within one foot of each other.
Joe Buck, who is known to hate the Yankees, broadcasting the game on Fox, said, "He fires the bat back toward Piazza." Not at him. Toward him. If even Joe Buck, right as it's happening, wouldn't say it was at Piazza, that speaks volumes.
It was Tim McCarver, his broadcast partner, who called it "a blatant act" and "foolish." McCarver was one of these people who knows he's really smart, and wants you to know it, too. This time, he outsmarted himself: It couldn't be both a blatant act and foolish. "Foolish" suggests that he was acting in the heat of the moment. "A blatant act" would be planning it out, or, at least, having time to think about it. He didn't have that kind of time.
And so, just as Yankee shortstop turned NBC broadcaster Tony Kubek burned into fans' minds, 25 years earlier in the 1975 World Series' Game 3, that Ed Armbrister of the Cincinnati Reds had blatantly interfered with Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox, which cannot be proven, fans heard McCarver, and they took his word for it. They shouldn't have.
If there's one thing that Roger Clemens made perfectly clear, many times in his playing career, it's this: If he wants to throw something at someone with the intention of hitting him, that person will get hit. If he wanted to throw the bat at Piazza, that bat would have hit Piazza.
Which brings us to a simple concept: Clemens did nothing wrong. I know: That sounds like the reaction to Avengers: Infinity War and "The Snap": "Thanos did nothing wrong." Yeah, well, to hear Met fans tell it, what Clemens did was as bad as killing half of all life in the universe. They may actually hate him more than Red Sox fans do. And he didn't do anything to them, either. (Hell, he didn't reject the Red Sox for the Yankees: The Red Sox rejected him, and he went to Toronto first.)
McCarver was right about one thing: What Clemens did was foolish. But it caused no harm. It didn't come close to causing harm. Clemens broke neither the rules of baseball, nor the laws of the City of New York, nor the laws of the State of New York, nor the laws of the United States of America.
Should he have done it? No. But the only thing that got hurt was Piazza's feelings, and the Mets', and the Met fans', and those of Yankee Haters everywhere.
So now, the question needs to be asked: Which of these men was on steroids, warping their perceptions of what was happening? Was it Clemens? Was it Piazza? Was it both? Was it neither? Until either man, or both men, decide to change their stories, we may never know for sure.
As it turned out, both men played their last game in 2007, meaning that both became eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in the election of January 2013. Piazza was elected in 2016. Through 2022, Clemens is still waiting. That did, however, avoid what would have been the most awkward induction ceremony in the Hall's history.
Oh, yes: The rest of the game. The Yankees took a 6-0 lead. The Mets scored 5 runs in the 9th, after Clemens was taken out. This included a home run by Piazza. Yankee manager Joe Torre had to call on Mariano Rivera to get the last out. He did. The Yankees took a 2-0 lead in the Series, and won the Series in 5 games.
Roger Clemens has 2 World Series rings. Mike Piazza has none. But Mike Piazza is in the Hall of Fame. Roger Clemens, thus far, is not. Who is better off?
*
October 22, 2000 was a Sunday, so it was also a day of NFL action. Almost lost in the craziness of Game 2 of the World Series was the fact that, a few hours earlier, Corey Dillon of the Cincinnati Bengals rushed for 278 yards against the Denver Broncos, breaking Walter Payton's single-game record of 275, set in 1977. The Bengals had been 0-6, but won this one, 31-21 at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. (It's now named Paycor Stadium.) They won the next week, too, beating their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns. But they fell apart, finishing 4-12.
Dillon, who has since been arrested for hitting his wife, has seen his record surpassed by Jamal Lewis and Adrian Peterson -- a cocaine addict and a child abuser, respectively. Walter Payton, one of the most decent men in sports history, went to his grave with his record intact. I don't think he would have minded seeing his record broken, but it would have upset him to see the character of the men who have done it.
Other NFL games played that day:
* The Indianapolis Colts beat the New England Patriots, 30-23 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.
* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Chicago Bears, 13-9 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.
* The Tennessee Titans beat the Baltimore Ravens, 14-6 at PSINet Stadium (now M&T Bank Stadium) in Baltimore.
* The Carolina Panthers beat the San Francisco 49ers, 34-16 at Ericsson Stadium (now Bank of America Stadium) in Charlotte.
* The New Orleans Saints beat the Atlanta Falcons, 21-19 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
* The Washington Redskins beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 35-16 at Alltel Stadium (now EverBank Stadium) in Jacksonville.
* The Dallas Cowboys beat the Arizona Cardinals, 48-7 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.
* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 22-0 at Three Rivers Stadium in PIttsburgh.
* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Buffalo Bills, 31-27 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the St. Louis Rams, 54-34 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. There was never really an NFL rivalry in Missouri, not between the Chiefs and the Rams from 1995 to 2015, and not between the Chiefs and the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1970 to 1987.
* The Oakland Raiders beat the Seattle Seahawks, 31-3 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the Network Associates Coliseum).
Three days earlier, the Detroit Lions beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 28-14 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. And on ABC Monday Night Football, the New York Jets entered the 4th quarter at Giants Stadium trailing 30-7, and won it 40-37 on John Hall's field goal with 8:13 left in overtime. It's become known as the Monday Night Miracle.
And the New York Giants, the Green Bay Packers and the San Diego Chargers had a bye week.
There were 4 NHL games that day:
* The New York Rangers lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-2 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus. Kirk Maltby scored the winning goal with 2:59 left in overtime.
* The Florida Panthers and the Minnesota Wild played to a 0-0 tie at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
* And the Phoenix Coyotes and the Edmonton Oilers played to a 3-3 tie at the Skyreach Centre, as the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton was then known.
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