Who’s on First? Piazza Happy Not to Be Answer

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — How strange is it that Todd Zeile, his former Dodger teammate and buddy, has taken Mike Piazza off the first-base hook?

How strange is it that Zeile, a third baseman, is moving across the diamond to replace John Olerud as the New York Mets’ first baseman, relieving Piazza of those irritating questions about the possibility of his move from catcher to first base?

No more questions?

Well, sort of.

“I’ll be retiring from baseball as a catcher and people will still be talking about moving to first base,” a smiling Piazza said, referring to a subject initiated early in his Dodger career--the theory being that at a physically less-demanding position he could better sustain his offensive tools.

Now, with Zeile having signed a three-year, $18-million contract as a free agent, Piazza seems locked into his current position, at least for the immediate future.

And a good thing, Zeile said.

“Why mess with success?” he said. “Until there’s a real reason or a serious injury, I don’t think Mike has any desire to change.

“He’s on his way to establishing history by annihilating the top offensive records for catchers.”

Carlton Fisk, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer, holds the home run record for catchers with 351, set over 24 years. Piazza, in seven full seasons, has 240, having hit 40 in his first full season with the Mets to become the first catcher to have hit that many twice. He has more home runs and runs batted in (768) than Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Mickey Cochrane, Bill Dickey or Gabby Hartnett, all Hall of Fame catchers, had after seven full seasons.

At his current pace, Piazza will surpass Fisk’s home run total in three years.

“I know it’s out there, but it’s not like I’m sitting home and crunching numbers every night with a calculator,” Piazza said. “I’ve hit 240 in seven years, and I think I can hit 200 in the next six [taking him through his $90-million contract with the Mets], but the physical and mental catching demands are so hard that right now the only thing I think about is coming to camp healthy and staying healthy.”

He was far from it in October, when he sat out two of the four Division Series games against Arizona because of a bad reaction to a cortisone injection in his thumb. He batted only .167 in six games of the championship series against Atlanta as he battled the swollen thumb and an assortment of other discomforts.

“The tough part was the seven-game losing streak we had near the end of the season,” Piazza said. “We were four up with 12 to play and then we were three down with four to play. If we had won three or four of those games, I might have been able to rehab a couple days, but I don’t want to sound like a martyr. You’d walk into the trainer’s room and Robin Ventura was having his knee drained. Everyone was banged up.”

Piazza acknowledged it was a frustration to end the season without the healthy hands that a hitter needs but that he wouldn’t trade the postseason experience. Now, after an active winter, the Mets have added a big-time ace in Mike Hampton, a big but inconsistent bat in Derek Bell and a big Piazza pal in Zeile, who dumped the Texas Rangers because . . .

Well, Zeile said, 1) they wouldn’t pull the trigger on an agreement that should have been reached several weeks before he signed with the Mets in December, 2) “mutual loyalty” has become a nonissue in baseball, 3) the Mets have a better chance than Texas to win, and 4) he was swayed, in part, by Piazza’s lobbying.

“The only thing I told him was that it was a great group of guys in a great city and that we had the chance to win,” Piazza said. “The way it was reported, you’d thought I was writing the check for him.”

Zeile, who hit 24 homers and drove in 98 runs last year, knew the situation. Olerud had left. The Mets, with no desire to juggle the remaining members of a touted infield by moving Ventura off third, romanced Zeile with the understanding he would switch to first.

Zeile, who had played about 75 games at first during his previous 10-plus seasons and who made an American League-high 25 errors at third last year, said he isn’t going about the switch with the idea of winning a Gold Glove or becoming the next Olerud, a solid fielder whose glove is almost as reliable as his bat.

“My job is not to come in and try to live up to anybody’s expectations,” said Zeile, who is being tutored by former Gold Glove first baseman Keith Hernandez, among others. “I can’t think in terms of joining one of the best infields ever. I can only try to do the best job I can. I mean, it’s not like I’m an outfielder making the transition. I’ve had experience fielding ground balls, making infield throws. I want to do a solid job and produce some impact with my bat. If I worry about anything else it will take away from my ability to do that.”

Zeile once envisioned returning to his hometown Dodgers as a replacement for Adrian Beltre if Beltre had been declared a free agent as a result of his signing in violation of baseball’s age requirements. He talked with Chairman Bob Daly, knew the Dodgers were in a “wait and see” posture and now he and Piazza have been reunited in the Big Apple, where Zeile will be biting into that new position.

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* The Dodgers would like to provide left-handed bullpen company for Onan Masaoka but take solace in the fact that right-handed newcomer Terry Adams limited left-handed hitters to a .186 average last year. Right-handed hitters, however, batted .287, and Adams’ status with the Chicago Cubs had dropped so low that they were close to trading him to the Arizona Diamondbacks for a double-A pitcher before the Dodgers took him for the extravagant package of Ismael Valdes and Eric Young.

* It wasn’t exactly a package deal, but in addition to signing Chuck Finley as a free agent, the Cleveland Indians also hired former Angel pitching coach Dick Pole for that same position. Pole took a little shot at the Angels when asked about the pitching talent in the Cleveland camp. “I’ve seen some really good arms [here],” he said. “Seeing this many good arms in one camp, that’s a novelty for me.”

* The Indians, devoid of a closer, and the Montreal Expos, willing to trade Ugueth Urbina, remain the two clubs most interested in John Rocker. The Expos are an intriguing prospect given Rocker’s rap at foreigners, which he would be in Montreal. The Expos have one of baseball’s most diverse clubhouses and are managed by a Dominican, Felipe Alou, who sat in his spring office the other day and said: “Rocker is going to pitch with somebody in the big leagues, whether it is the Braves, Expos or some other team. I don’t believe that team is going to dissolve just because he is on it.”

* The possibility that former Dodger Pedro Astacio, a Dominican Republic native who has permanent residence in the United States, may be deported as a result of a January guilty plea in a domestic violence incident has the Colorado Rockies very concerned, although they will only say it’s in the hands of the lawyers.

U.S immigration law states that a person can be deported if found guilty or pleads guilty to domestic violence. Astacio, 17-11 last year when he pitched 232 innings, pleaded guilty to third-degree assault for hitting his estranged wife, Ana, in her left eye last summer. He received a two-year deferred judgment and was ordered to undergo counseling. In response to the immigration department’s plan to hold a deportation hearing, Astacio’s lawyers are trying to withdraw the guilty plea and take the case to trial.