Mike Piazza had one thing on his mind when he stepped up to the plate for the first time in the New York Mets’ game against the San Francisco Giants. It was May 5, 2004, and the Mets’ slugger desperately wanted to hit a home run. Hitting homers was as natural as breathing air to Piazza. In 11 years in the big leagues as a catcher, he had smashed 351 round-trippers of every kind: line-drive rockets, towering moon shots, bottom-of-the-ninth blasts, crushing grand slams. Piazza knew, however, that the next ball he sent screaming over the fence would be something special, something for the ages. The next home run would.
