Piazza to go into Hall of Fame with Mets cap

“He wore it backwards more than I did”, Griffey said with a smile. But then, (I) eventually chose to just try to do the best I could, and the fans responded, and I ended up having an an awesome experience here in NY.

But Griffey’s No. 24, which has never been worn by another Mariners’ player since he was traded to the Reds before the 2000 season, won’t just be retired at the big league level.

Griffey is the first Mariners player in the Hall.

Griffey also opened up the possibilities that yes (!), he may wear his hat backward on his plaque, though it could be left open to a fan vote.

Smith, a center who played in both of the Bulldogs’ national championship game appearances when Stevens was their coach, has been battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Unable to agree to a long-term deal, the Dodgers traded him in 1998 to the Florida Marlins, who dealt him to the Mets eight days later.

The Mets are going to follow up and retire Piazza’s No. 31 later this year. I don’t feel like I was embraced, and I wasn’t by any means playing well.

But it was in seven seasons with the Mets that Piazza made himself a Hall of Famer as possibly the greatest-hitting catcher of all time.

Griffey’s 24 will hang alongside Jackie Robinson’s 42 in the outfield, an honor that Junior more than appreciated. Tommy Lasorda may have done Piazza’s dad a favor to take him, however late, in the amateur draft, but he didn’t hit.

“They said, ‘We’ve got a little surprise for you, ‘” Griffey recalled on Friday after a news conference at Safeco. “The kind of guy who offensively, could change a game, carry a team…All those years we played against him, whether he was with the Mets or Dodgers, he was always the first guy you would identify as: this is the guy we’re not going to let beat us”.

Despite flying under the radar as an amateur player, Piazza burst onto the big-league scene. He was 28 votes shy of getting elected last year, but this year he managed to make the cut to get voted in. He later won two World Series titles as a member of the New York Yankees and finished his career with a. 294 lifetime batting average. The elder Griffey said the family was hoping to get the call on his son’s first year of eligibility; the highest vote percentage was a shock.

McGwire, who has admitted using PEDs, was named on 12.3 percent of ballots while Sosa was on 7 percent, both well shy of the 75 percent needed for election. Trevor Hoffman, second on the career saves list and appearing on the ballot for the first time, was 34 short. Also missing out were outfielder Tim Raines (69.8), relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman (67.3) and pitcher Curt Schilling (52.3).