It was spring training 1998, a time when the Yankees were ascendant and the Mets were a dull portrait of mediocrity. Todd Hundley, the Mets’ biggest star, was out with an injury, and three little-known catchers — Todd Pratt, Vance Wilson and Tim Spehr — were competing to replace him.
On a particularly quiet day in March (they all seemed quiet that spring), a Mets official mentioned that the team yearned to grab Mike Piazza from the Dodgers. Nelson Doubleday, the owner at the time, was said to want “someone with pizazz.”
Piazza would not join the Mets for another three months, finally coming in a trade with the Florida Marlins, but over the next seven years in New York, he burnished his legend as perhaps the best-hitting catcher ever.