Mike Piazza

From Wiki Gonzalez

Mike Piazza is arguably the greatest hitting catcher in history, but his fame on Baseball Primer extended beyond that.

After long-repeated rumors of a closeted gay player were attached to him in May 2002 by New York Post gossip columnist Neal Travis, and after his manager Bobby Valentine publicly suggested baseball was ready for an openly gay player, Piazza had had it. Before a Mets game, he staged an impromptu press conference to assert his heterosexuality before the media.

Henceforth on Primer, posts under Piazza's name appeared anywhere a sophomoric gay joke could be contrived. And we mean anywhere. (This practice became known as "Piazza-posting.") The endless Piazza posts across all of Primer spurred repeated debates about whether they were all in good fun, offensive, homophobic and/or just stupid.

With the advent of registration on Primer in May 2004, the Piazza posts went away. We will likely never be able to prove whether any of them were written by the real catcher Mike Piazza.

There is, in fact, a noted gay activist named Michael Piazza. Rev. Michael Piazza is dean of the Cathedral of Hope, a 2,000-member Metropolitan Community Church in Dallas, which is considered the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender church in the world. It's possible that someone mixed up the two, which might explain the rumors about Catcher Mike Piazza -- though certainly the mustache didn't help.

As unlikely as it is that Catcher Mike Piazza posted here, it's even less likely that Reverend Michael Piazza posted here.

Catcher Mike Piazza is believed to have attended private school throughout his childhood in Phoenixville, PA. Had he attended public school, Piazza would most likely have enrolled in Phoenixville High School, located at 1200 Gay Street.

In January 2005, sources confirmed that Catcher Mike Piazza would marry his longtime girlfriend, a former Playmate, later that month. In the resulting Primer thread, the BTF-posting Mike Piazza made a surprise appearance asking whether the Primates had missed him.

See also: Resting Alex Rodriguez for other ballplayers posting.