Clemens looks back on the infamous Piazza incident

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Roger Clemens didn’t wait for a warm-up question.

Seated in front of an audience that included numerous former teammates and opponents earlier this week, overlooking the fairways at David Cone’s charity golf event, the Rocket went straight to the moment everyone remembers from the 2000 Subway Series: the splintered bat, the furious glare, and Mike Piazza frozen between disbelief and anger.

“He would have known if I’d thrown it at him,” Clemens said.

He paused for a beat, as if replaying the scene in his head. Game 2 at Yankee Stadium. Piazza’s bat shattered on a Clemens fastball, the barrel helicoptering toward the mound. Clemens grabbed it, almost instinctively, and tossed it toward the baseline as Piazza ran past. In that moment, the entire baseball world was on edge.

Speaking at the Brooklake Country Club in Florham Park, N.J., Clemens stood by what he said so many Octobers ago -- that the shard of Piazza’s bat “landed in [his] lap” and he was “whistling it to the on-deck circle.”

“Mike’s a dangerous hitter. I think he hit every freaking breaking ball and split I threw to him,” Clemens said. “So when [pitching coach] Mel Stottlemyre had our pitching meeting, he said, ‘We’re going to pitch Piazza in, and we’re going to pitch him in, and we’re going to pitch him in.’ I had no problem with that. I didn’t want that dude getting extended.”

Those memories took center stage again this weekend as members of the 2000 World Series-winning club reunited for Old-Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium -- a celebration that turned somber when Mariano Rivera suffered a torn Achilles while playing the outfield during the exhibition.

Rivera had intended to speak with embattled closer Devin Williams after the alumni game, a conversation that never took place. Still, the gathering brought together a generation of Yankees who know what it means to perform under October’s bright lights.

For Clemens, the Subway Series was a career highlight, the second of his two championships. The Yankees and Mets played five close games, four decided by two runs or fewer, and the spotlight was relentless.

He recalled how principal owner George M. Steinbrenner was so on edge that week, "The Boss" sat in on the club’s pitching meetings and even had the Yankees’ furniture carted into the drab visiting clubhouse at Shea Stadium.

“It was a fun Series, an intense Series,” Clemens said. “It was one that we couldn’t afford to lose. I think George would have reverted to 1975 Mr. Steinbrenner if we lost that one.”

Clemens’ dominant Game 2 performance -- eight scoreless innings, striking out nine -- set the tone for the Yankees to take a 2-0 Series lead.

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Cone, whose shining moment in that postseason was a Game 4 relief assignment to handle Piazza, remembers the atmosphere vividly.

“One thing we all laughed about in that World Series was, the Mets had a theme song that year, ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’ by the Baha Men,” Cone said. “They actually had the Baha Men on the field.

“Derek Jeter is leading off the game, and he hit the first pitch for a home run before the Baha Men even got off the field. So who let the dogs out? Derek Jeter let the dogs out.”

Shane Spencer, still a fan favorite for his late-season home run barrage in 1998, was injured during the ’00 postseason. From his spot on the bench, though, he marveled at the depth and confidence in that clubhouse -- and he believes Clemens’ version of events.

“People ask me all the time, ‘Did he try to throw the bat at Piazza?’” Spencer said. “And I say absolutely not, because as Roger could tell you, I used to stand in when he would throw those bullpens. And I’m telling you, this guy never missed a spot. Ever. He’d throw it right to the glove every time. So if he wanted to hit Piazza, he could have hit Piazza.”

In the opposite dugout, Todd Zeile felt the weight of the challenge. He was on deck in Game 5 as Rivera induced Piazza to hit a deep flyout to center field, waiting for an at-bat that never came.

“I knew it wasn’t gone,” Zeile said. “Shea Stadium, at that time of year, that time of night, you’ve got to hit a thunderbolt to get one out of that part of the ballpark. Mike hit it like he thought he got it pretty well, but I saw Bernie [Williams] go, and I saw the ball dying. I stood there waiting for the celebration because I knew it was over.”

For a few minutes at the golf course, it felt like the bottom of the ninth had just ended and they were cooling down in the clubhouse. Clemens will always defend his side of the bat-throwing incident; Piazza will always have his. It’s a moment that shows why the 2000 Series will continue to endure in the city’s collective memory.

“Being a professional for 24 years, you just take pride with the teams that you’re dealing with and trying to win with,” Clemens said. “I think I said it many times in the dugout: ‘Hey, we’re here, let’s win.’ I had wonderful teammates, and they bought into it.”