A successful and hardworking former professional baseball catcher who played almost 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Mets, Los Angeles, Florida Marlins, San Diego Padres, and Oakland Athletics is Mike Joseph Piazza. He was the robust All-Star catcher and power hitter. Mike was nurtured up from strong and inspiring family to Vince and Veronica Piazza. His father (Vince Piazza) constantly helped him in baseball career. While he was young, he used to hit baseballs at a mattress propped against a basement wall which made Vince to build backyard batting cage for him. Mike struggle so hard that he used to hit approximately 300 balls a day, even in the winter. In a while with his great interest and hard work, he successfully stepped into the world of baseball.
Mike Piazza was born on September 4, 1968 in Norristown, Pennsylvania and grew up in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. His ethnicity is Italian/Sicilian and birth sign is Virgo. Mike first attended to Phoenixville High School and graduated in 1986. During his high school, he hit .442 with 11 home runs and broke his school’s career home run record. At hand, he received little interest from major-league scouts and was given opportunity to play for Miami-Dade North Community College. He played with great effort for Miami-Dade and succeeds to won the heart of many peoples. After that, he was drafted by the Dodgers in the 62nd round of the 1998 MLB amateur draft as the 1390th player picked. Luckily, Mike’s father (Vince) was a childhood friend of former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. Lasorda helped Mike to attend a special training camp for catchers and improved his hitting ability. Mike best year as a Dodger came in 1997 there he was announced as a Most Valuable Player for the National League.
In 1998, he was transferred to the Florida Marlins and then after week later to New York Mets. Similarly, he played for the San-Diego Padres and Oakland Athletics fallowing the season 2005 and 2006 respectively. Throughout his entire career, Mike had won a lot of award such as Silver Slugger Award, NL Rookie of the year, Baseball All-Star and New York Mets Hall of Fame. Mike said that “His career and his life is a miracle”.
Born as Mike Joseph Piazza and famous as Mike Piazza is married to wonderful women named Alicia Rickter on January 29, 2005 at St. Jude Catholic Church in Miami. As of now, the couple has three children named Nicoletta Veronica, Paulina Sophia and Marco Vincenzo born in 2007, 2009 and 2013 respectively. The couple is contentedly married with each other. Alicia seems as “Laura” in the comedy buying the cow and in the TV series Baywatch Hawaii and The young and the restless. She also posed nude for Playboy magazine as a Miss October.
Mike has been rumored of being gay. However, this news appears to be false but Mike had stated that he is not a gay but heterosexual and he also believed baseball is for gay player. This statement made lot of American doubt on him.
Mike Joseph Piazza has a lot of follower. Among the follower, he is also known as, the Pizza man. He has an outstanding salary. As of now, his net worth is estimated at $100.9 million. His height is 6 feet 3 inch and weight is 98 kg.
