"Piazza" with author Greg Prince

Bergino Baseball Clubhouse

A franchise and fan base in perpetual search of validation finally had its ticket punched as 2016 dawned. Mike Piazza, who held records in one hand and a city's rapt attention in the other, gained election to the Hall of Fame. Within weeks of this long-awaited announcement, the ballclub with whom he chose to cast his eternal lot, the New York Mets, made a date to retire his number.

In Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star, Greg Prince explores the parallel paths Piazza and the Mets set out on in the early 1990s and how their individual journeys merged into a mutual quest for transcendence. From marriage of convenience to lifetime bond to a state of baseball grace reached only once before in team history, "Piazza" examines how the stranger from Los Angeles became New York's favorite son and why the Mets fans continued to rally to Piazza's cause years after he took his final swing for them.

Greg Prince is co-creator of the blog Faith and Fear in Flushing, the daily destination for "Mets fans who like to read." His memoir of the same name was published in 2009 and was followed in 2016 by "Amazin' Again." He has written about baseball for the "New York Times," "Huffington Post," and ESPN.com; served as a consultant to the film "The Last Play at Shea;" and helped organize the New York Mets Fiftieth Anniversary Conference at Hofstra.

On June 15, 2017 -- the 40th Anniversary of "The Midnight Massacre" -- Greg Prince led our intimate Clubhouse conversation into a slice of Mets history, as only he can. Piazza, Seaver, Prince. Hall of Famers, all. Listen in...