On Friday, the New York Mets quietly welcomed the return of a famed piece of team history, which earlier this year came perilously close to going astray.
On display inside the Mets Museum at Citi Field through Tuesday is the jersey Mike Piazza wore when he hit his memorable home run in the first major sporting event held in New York after the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The jersey’s presence in a glass case coincides with the retirement of Piazza’s No. 31 on Saturday night, part of a series of events this weekend to celebrate the induction of the former Mets catcher into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Which meant Piazza was back in Queens, as, for the moment, was his actual Hall of Fame plaque. Along with the famous jersey.
In April, Goldin Auctions listed that jersey for sale, creating surprise and a good deal of consternation among Mets fans, and others, that the team had let it out of its possession in the first place. The home white jersey features an American flag and Piazza’s signature on the back, as well as the 9/11 date stitched on the right sleeve.
When Piazza wore it at Shea Stadium on the night of Sept. 21, 2001, he hit a two-run, go-ahead homer in the eighth inning against Atlanta that propelled the Mets to an emotional victory and gave rise to the notion that they might overtake the Braves in the National League East.
The thought of that jersey ending up with a private collector irked a lot of people, including Piazza.
Eventually, Anthony Scaramucci, Tony Lauto, Jim McCann and an anonymous partner reached an agreement to buy the jersey for $365,000. Some members of the group are also minority partners in the Mets. The jersey will now rotate among Citi Field, the 9/11 Memorial Museum in Lower Manhattan and the Hall of Fame.
“The jersey’s going exactly where Mike Piazza wants it to go,” Scaramucci said at the time.
For now, it is on display at the Mets Museum, which opened at Citi Field in April 2010. When the ballpark itself opened the year before, Mets fans grumbled that it was a nice architectural homage to the Brooklyn Dodgers’ old home of Ebbets Field, but seemed lacking in Mets history.
The museum was meant to help remedy that perception. It encompasses 3,700 square feet, according to the Mets website, with a heavy dose of artifacts from the 1986 World Series championship team, the last time the Mets won it all. Other important moments — including the Sept. 21, 2001, game — have a smaller presence.
On Friday, the only other item connected to the Sept. 21, 2001, game was a baseball signed by Piazza. Both the ball and the Piazza jersey were in a discreet corner of the museum Friday. The two items matched the number of artifacts dedicated to Lenny Dykstra.
In any case, on Friday evening, as the Mets prepared to take on the Colorado Rockies, fans who visited the museum before the game mostly gravitated toward Piazza’s Hall of Fame plaque. Fans had to wait in line to get a close view, and Hall of Fame photographers snapped pictures of the interaction.
So what else is in the museum these days?
Johan Santana’s 2012 no-hitter, the only one in team history, is noted. However, there is nothing representing other important landmarks, such as Jose Reyes’ 2011 batting title (he won it on the last day of the season) or Endy Chavez’s wall-scaling catch in Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series (yes, the Mets lost the game, but still). A Todd Pratt jersey, meant to signify his game-ending home run to win the 1999 National League division series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, is present, but mislabeled.
On the heels of their 2015 World Series appearance, and with an immensely talented, if banged-up, pitching staff, the Mets may be ready to make memories more frequently. Perhaps the return of Piazza’s jersey is the beginning of a wider recognition of moments that are meaningful to Mets fans. No doubt, there is plenty of space for additions. And if the Mets are looking for more mementos, the catcher’s helmet that Piazza wore during that game against the Braves is up for sale by Goldin Auctions.
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