Best Baseball Songs Ever: Piazza, New York Catcher – Belle and Sebastian
Over the next week or so to celebrate the official beginning of spring, I’ll try to come up with a list of the best baseball songs of all time. In no particular order, we begin with:
Belle and Sebastian – Piazza, New York Catcher (2003)
Belle and Sebastian dare to ask if Mike Piazza is gay, an allegation that has dogged the certain Hall of Famer for much of his career. Despite being well-scrubbed from the internet, it was widely rumored in L.A. that when Piazza was a Dodger he was married to Eric Karros in a clubhouse ceremony attended by their teammates to celebrate their “roommate” situation in Newport Beach. I believe Piazza was dressed up as the bride for the festivities, although that may be my prejudices speaking. Just because he’s a catcher doesn’t necessarily make him the more feminine of the two. Karros, after all, is noted for his soft hands at first base and Piazza is notorious for carrying a big stick. Either way, the couple should be praised for happily co-habitating in a Newport Beach bungalow for four years. Certainly, their liaison would have lasted longer had not the notoriously homophobic Fox News Corps gotten in the way of their special relationship and traded Piazza to the Marlins in 1998.
Alicia Rickter: The Ultimate Flipper?
Mike Piazza, meanwhile, adamantly claims he is not gay and has proven it by getting married to Alicia Rickter, a former Playboy model and Baywatch “actress.” Oh sure, it would be easy to mock Piazza’s bride for being perhaps the most obvious choice for a beard one could find … but she actually doesn’t look as plastic as I suspected she might. Who knows, maybe she cured him? After all, I wouldn’t be surprised if images of her were routinely used in homosexual re-education gulags run by rabid Christian fundamentalists.
At any rate, I hope Mike Piazza is not gay for no other reason that that it would be sad if he were. Instead of being in the closet, he could have been a great spokesman – not just for young gay athletes in the closet, but also for an array of men’s beauty products. In fact, he could have been the Jackie Robinson of his era.
Instead, he’s just a guy who made a fortune playing baseball and married a hot actress. He wasn’t just a good player, he will forever be remembered as one of the greatest hitting catchers of all time. A dream for sure, but somewhat uninspired considering that he could have been a pivotal figure. How much more interesting Mike Piazza’s life would be if he could have been the person who so many others wanted him to be.
Belle and Sebastian also reference Sandy Koufax, the great Dodger from the late 50s and 1960s: “The pitcher puts religion first and rests on holidays.” Koufax was also rumored to be gay and got so upset about a story in the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, that he severed ties with the Dodgers out of protest. Koufax was 67 and the Dodgers, as noted earlier, were also owned by the diabolical, gay-hating Murdoch at the time. (Koufax has since reunited with his old team, who are now owned by an entirely different brand of idiot). If anything, Koufax’s reaction was a bit extreme, revealing an unflattering degree of anti-homosexuality – a sadly common affliction of actual self-hating homosexuals. Koufax, as the song states, is famous for refusing to pitch in Game One of the 1965 World Series because it was Yom Kippur. I suspect many people thought his adherence to faith was “gay” not in the homosexual sense, but simply “gay” in the lame sense. It’s a semantic problem that comes up frequently and due to the confusion it creates, it’s probably a good idea to simply refrain from using “gay” as a synonym for that which is lame. I suspect, though, I won’t be able to help myself until a good, solid role model from a traditionally heterosexual segment of society comes along and articulates the errors of my ways.
lonesomebeehive 