Mike Piazza will go into the Hall of Fame with a Mets cap on his plaque in Cooperstown, which came as no surprise. But that doesn't mean the Dodgers shouldn't honor their former catcher, who spent the first 5½ seasons of his career in Los Angeles.
The Dodgers have a policy of only retiring numbers for their own Hall of Famers, except for Jim Gilliam, who spent nearly three decades with the club as a player and a coach and died suddenly before the 1978 World Series. There is also the case of Fernando Valenzuela, whose number 34 hasn't been given to any other player since his departure in 1991, yet the Dodgers refuse to formalize the number retirement with a proper ceremony that would honor a decision that effectively has already been made by the team.