For Astros' Biggio, Long Island and Shea are home

Jim Baumbach

September 9, 2007

Having spent his formative years as a sports junkie in Kings Park, Craig Biggio got to know Shea Stadium pretty well. He said he enjoyed watching the meteoric rise of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry and even managed to sit in the upper deck with a few college buddies for one of the epic Mets-Astros games in the 1986 National League Championship Series.

Biggio returned to Shea for another Astros-Mets game a little less than two years later, except this time he came to the stadium as one of the visiting players. He had made his major-league debut four days earlier, but he said yesterday that it was almost as if he didn't feel like a true major-leaguer until he played at Shea.

"It was like, you made it, you made it to the big leagues," Biggio said. "What a great moment. I'll always remember New York for Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry and all those guys, and then getting a chance to come here and play ... It was just a special moment that I'll always remember."

Houston has been Biggio's home for a long time now, ever since the Astros chose him in the first round of the 1987 amateur draft. But Long Island will always be his first home, and Shea Stadium, too. That's why this afternoon's game, his farewell to Shea in his 20th and final season, is going to be special to Biggio, 41. He has confirmed he's going to be in the lineup, and in response he expects his ticket list to be long. "I'll get hammered again," he said.

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The Mets will show a short video tribute to Biggio on the scoreboard today, a classy move to honor a local player who once spurned them. The Mets made a big push at Biggio after the 1995 season, but the free agent stayed in Houston, thus planting strong roots in his adopted baseball home.

Standing in the visitor's dugout during batting practice yesterday, Biggio sheepishly admitted he hasn't spent much time on Long Island in years. But that's something he plans to change in his retired life.

"I'm looking forward to seeing some high school football games from where I grew up," Biggio said. "But right now, for the last 20 years, I haven't had the time on my schedule to do that kind of stuff. So I am looking forward to bringing my kids and maybe seeing a baseball game, a football game, something like that."

Generally considered a lock for baseball's Hall of Fame, Biggio ranks among the best athletes to have come from Long Island. The tailback won Newsday's Hansen Award as the best football player in Suffolk County in 1983 and played well enough on the baseball field to earn a scholarship to Seton Hall, where he played alongside future major-leaguers Mo Vaughn and John Valentin. He began his major-league career as a catcher before moving to second base to centerfield and back to second base, and played in seven All-Star Games.

Among his list of activities for post-baseball life is to bring his three kids to Long Island and show them everything about the place where he grew up.

"That's part of what you do as a dad, teaching ethics and morals and all that other stuff that goes on," he said. "And then show them where you grew up, where you were raised and why you are who you are, I guess."

While Biggio told the story of sitting in the crowd for the 1986 playoffs, he glanced up at the upper deck, seemingly in disbelief of how quickly two decades have passed by. He went 0-for-4 against Bobby Ojeda and Terry Leach in his Shea debut June 30, 1988. The next night he doubled off Rick Aguilera in his first at-bat for his first hit here. Surely a bunch of his family and friends were in the crowd that day, just like this weekend.

The Seton Hall athletic booster club deemed Friday night "Craig Biggio Night at Shea," selling tickets that included transportation and a pregame dinner. Biggio's college coach, Mike Sheppard, was in attendance. Even Biggio seemed surprised by the turnout for him.

"I saw a lot of faces I hadn't seen in a long time, some from high school," he said. "When you grow up, are raised here and you don't come back except for these games, it's hard to keep in touch with everybody."

Isn't that what retired life is for?