In this off-season edition of Shoebox Memories, we take a look back at the 2002 Topps Chrome Gold card of Mike Piazza.

The 2002 Topps Chrome was a 660-card chromium-stock partial-parallel of the regular 2002 Topps set. Series One (cards 1-331) was released in late January, 2002; while Series Two wasn’t released until June. To reflect the premium value of the set and in an effort to give Topps Chrome its own identity, all base cards in Chrome had silver borders. Reflecting the premium card, the prices were premium as well, retailing at $3 per pack with only 4 cards per pack.

This card however, to make things just a little more special, was issued with a Gold border, which was inserted into 1 out of every 4 packs, which also served to make completing the entire Gold Chrome set prohibitively costly.

Taking a closer look at this card, we see two of the best catchers in the sport in 2001 – Mike Piazza and Jorge Posada of the crosstown rivals, NY Yankees. Despite what Yankee fans may try to convince you, Piazza was clearly the better of the two catchers  in 2001, the year the picture shown on the card would have been taken.  In 2001, Piazza batted .300 with 36 homers and “only” 94 RBIs.

It was the first season after Piazza became one of less than 10 major leaguers in history to have 5 consecutive seasons hitting better than .300 with at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs. Piazza was an All Star in 2001, won the Silver Slugger award, and his OPS was .948, his OPS+ (OPS adjusted for league and park) was 148. For those who like the stat, Piazza had 4.5 WAR in 2001.

Posada, also had a fine season in 2001 as he ht .277 with 22 home runs, 95 RBIs and an OPS of .838.  His OPS+ was 118, and he had 3.0 WAR that season as well.  Now that Mets fans have the stats to argue back against their Yankee fan friends, let’s turn our attention to the card.

Looking at the card, Mike Piazza, having thrown his mask aside appears ready to apply the tag to Posada. Well before the slide rule passed to protect catchers, Mike has braced himself, and has his throwing hand inside the glove to protect the ball from rolling out should Posada come barreling in. From the picture, we see that Piazza’s glove hand has the index finger exposed, a drawback from having the finger outside the glove.

Was Posada out on the play, or did Piazza have the ball kicked away? Did the Mets win the game shown?

Let’s get our deerstaker hat off the wall, boot up the computer and check out baseballreference.com as we try to answer these questions.

Note that the shot is clearly from a day game, and Piazza has the home uniform on while Posada is wearing the pale gray of Yankee road uniforms. We’re therefore looking for an interleague game played between the Yankees and Mets at Shea Stadium in 2001. Checking the Mets Schedule and Results  page from the website,  we see the Yankees played 3 games in 2001 at Shea Stadium, a weekend series from June 15-17.

  1. June 15 was a night game, so we can eliminate that game. Just to be sure, Posada struck out his first three times in that game and in his fourth appearance, was stranded at third.
  2. June 16 was a day game (1:27 PM start). In the top of the 4th, already ahead 2-0, Posada doubled down the right field line off Mets starter Kevin Appier. Posada advanced to third on an unassisted groundout to first by Scott Brosius.  It was the next play that appears on our card. With the infield in, Alfonso Soriano hit a groundball to short, and Rey Ordonez threw Posada out on a fielder’s choice at the plate.
  3. Robin Venture homered off Mike Mussina in the bottom half of the inning, but that was all the scoring in the game as the Mets lost 2-1. Mike Mussina had the victory, his 6th of the season, and Appier the loss, bring his record to 4-6.
  4. Note the dark bat underneath and perhaps behind Piazza. Although he later switched to a white ash bat, in 2001 Soriano used a dark maple bat, which is consistent with the picture shown on the card and the June – 16 date in question.
  5. The difference in the game was Mussina’s single off Appier in the second inning, plating the Yankees’ second run of the game. Appier did finish the season strong, completing the season with an 11-10 mark and a 3.58 ERA in over 206 innings pitched.
  6. A quick check of the June 17 game shows that the game was a night game with an 8:09 start time.

Although the play shown was in a losing effort, as we put our Deerstalker hat back on the peg in the wall, Mets fans can remember when Mike Piazza was the best catcher in baseball and played for the Amazins.