COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Kylee Cotterell’s devotion to Mike Piazza is so deep that she got a signed Piazza jersey for her communion gift and, when she was 11, carried a life-size cardboard cutout of the former Mets catcher through the streets of Manhattan for 12 hours before packing it up for the flight home with her family to Boca Raton, Fla.
“I just love him so much,” Cotterell, 26, said. “I thought one day we’d be married.”
On Sunday, as she awaited Piazza’s induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on the lawn of the Clark Sports Center, Cotterell vowed to cry through the ceremony, much as she did on the day she learned of his election to the Hall.