BASEBALL NOTES

There are many themes to the Subway Series but none as potentially volatile as the rematch between Mike Piazza, the New York Met catcher, and Roger Clemens, the New York Yankee pitcher. Piazza suffered a concussion when beaned by Clemens during an interleague game in July, and Met Manager Bobby Valentine called it intentional.

Valentine and Piazza refused to turn up the heat as rain was washing out a Met practice Wednesday. The manager hinted, however, that his team has a long memory.

“If anybody thinks that’s the biggest thing going on this week they are incorrect,” Valentine said. “If anybody thinks it’s totally forgotten, that’s incorrect as well. I’d like to make it as big an issue as everybody wants it to be, but that’s not going to happen.”

Said Piazza, “My only focus is on winning. Things happen and you have to turn the page. I have to have a clear mind to hit, and that’s the bottom line. I look at him as a very formidable pitcher, and that’s the bottom line.”

Clemens is scheduled to start Game 2 Sunday night at Yankee Stadium. He would not start any of the subsequent three games (if the third is needed) at Shea Stadium, where there will be no designated hitter and he would be forced to bat--vulnerable to retaliation. It is not certain whether Yankee Manager Joe Torre had that in mind when he named Andy Pettitte for Game 1 and Clemens for Game 2. In the wake of the six games with Seattle in the American League championship series, Pettitte-Clemens seemed to be the natural fallout.

Met reliever Turk Wendell reflected on the Piazza-Clemens incident and said, “I think we all have something we’d like to do about that. I don’t know. Has Roger ever said he was sorry? The whole thing about Torre saying he doesn’t want him to pitch at Shea [which Torre is not known to have said]. Why not? Is he afraid he’s going to get hit or something? It would show me a lot if he pitched here. It would show me he’s not afraid.”

Wendell said the incident “lingers over the team,” although he acknowledged that the Mets only talk about it when reporters bring it up.

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Met center fielder Jay Payton needed three stitches to close the cut near his left eye after being beaned by Dave Veres in the eighth inning of the Game 5 of the NL championship series with the St. Louis Cardinals. Payton stalked the mound as both benches emptied.

“My emotions got the best of me,” he said. “It was like a sucker punch. Nobody wants to get hit in the head. My immediate reaction was to go out and kill somebody, but we all realized that it would be senseless to get hurt in a playoff game with so much still at stake. It wasn’t the time or the place. If that had been the regular season, there may have been more to it.”

Payton will start Saturday.

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Valentine did not announce his series pitching rotation but is expected to use Mike Hampton and Al Leiter in the first two games. He may also employ Piazza as a designated hitter in one of the Yankee Stadium games, reducing the stress on a mild case of tendinitis in his right knee.