Free Republic

Of the 32 names on this year's Hall of Fame ballot, only two were approved Wednesday by baseball writers to join the immortals inside Cooperstown: Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza. They're two iconic sluggers of the 1990s with 1,057 homers between them, whose paths will cross again when they're inducted July 24. Griffey, on his first ballot, earned 99.3 percent of the vote, a total that surpasses Tom Seaver's record of 98.84 in 1992. Griffey missed three ballots. Piazza, in his fourth Hall of Fame campaign, received 83 percent, up from the 69.9 percent that left him outside of...

Ken Griffey Jr and Mike Piazza - MLB Hall of Fame Class 2016

Antony Piazza is stopped at Pierre Trudeau Airport during security screening early Sunday morning. Piazza was stopped at Pierre Trudeau Airport during security screening early Sunday morning when bomb components -- but no actual explosives -- were found in his carry-on luggage, and his duplex in the Montreal suburb of La Salle was searched, according to media reports from Montreal. Antony Piazza, who changed his name from Houshang Nazemi in 1986, ... A native of Tehran, Iran, Piazza moved to Canada in 1979. In 1985, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug trafficking, according to CBC News...

Piazza did himself no favors on that score in his new book, "Long Shot." In the book, he blames iconic Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully for turning fans against him during the contract stalemate that preceded his trade to the Florida Marlins in 1998.

Its founder billed it as a Disneyland for gun enthusiasts, a 550-acre master planned community with a shooting range as the draw. The concept was unveiled in the late 1990s, complete with artist renderings and a miniature model. Today, the model remains on site but so far it’s the only house there. "The safest community in America," that was the pitch to people seeking a home at the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. For upwards of $200,000 members were promised a one-acre luxury home site in an exclusive resort. Instead they got a thank you letter, a baseball hat and...

Mets backstop Mike Piazza, who's walking down the aisle with one-time Playmate Alicia Rickter next weekend, is the latest in a long line of athletes to fall hard for a beauty who has posed in the buff before millions of, ahem, readers.

<p>Granted, there is upheaval in the world and there are battles where a great deal is at stake -- life itself. All the more precious, then, the minor skirmishes on the home front that mean a great deal in a small way and remind us of how lucky we are to feel innocent hatreds, from summer to summer, at the ballpark.</p>

<p>March 22, 2003 -- PORT ST. LUCIE - Mike Piazza won't sensationalize it, but he says "I was close" to enlisting in the military before deciding on a baseball career.</p> <p>Piazza took the U.S. Armed Forces officer's test as a senior at Phoenixville (Penn.) High School circa 1986, and was "highly recruited" by the military, the Met catcher said yesterday.</p>