famed moment in Yanks-Mets series (’oo?); Clemens pitch, Piazza breaks bat; Clemens throws part of bat at him.
“I thought it was the ball.”
>>The last time they had met, in July of 2000, only three months earlier, Clemens buried a fastball into Piazza’s skull. Everyone in the Mets’ organization and their fans were fuming. Everyone on the other side of this equation was stunned ... and a bit worried about the form of retaliation ... and when it would arrive....He swings and boom! — the bat explodes into three pieces. The handle stays in Piazza’s hands. The middle of the bat flies into foul territory off the first-base side. The barrel, the biggest part of the jagged bat, bounces to the left side of the infield, between the mound and first base.
Clemens rushes in to field what he thinks is the ball. At least that’s what he says later. Then, to the astonishment of millions of people, once he realizes it’s a piece of a bat, and not the ball, Clemens angrily flings the bat toward foul territory on the first-base side — right in the path of Piazza, who is running toward first. Piazza is stunned, confused and a little disoriented because of all the flying bat pieces, yet he is certain Clemens is throwing the bat purposely at him. A stunned Piazza begins walking toward Clemens with a perplexed expression. “What’s your problem?” Piazza yells.
The moment becomes highly intense as the space between the two players rapidly closes. But Clemens, refusing to acknowledge Piazza, walks toward home plate, telling umpire Charlie Reliford, “Give me a ball.” Meanwhile, as both dugouts empty, Reliford stands between the players, keeping order out of the potential chaos. Piazza, maintaining his composure under the most bizarre of inflammable situations, returns to home plate and Clemens returns to the mound.
On the next pitch, Piazza grounds out to second, and Clemens races off the mound, into the dugout, up the runway and into the clubhouse. His emotions were running so high that he had to find a way to calm himself down.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/espn25/story?page=moments/95