The Ex Files Too Scary for Dodgers : Though it happened more than a year ago, the Piazza trade has left a wound that time still hasn’t healed.

‘You with the media?”

Mike Piazza looked at the questioning stadium worker pushing buttons on the elevator Thursday afternoon and smiled.

It was not an insult, but a relief.

At last, somebody who had forgotten.

Finally, somebody who had moved on.

Inside, downstairs, much later, it was different, like he knew it would be, like he hoped it would not.

Mike Piazza stepped to the plate at 7:16 for the New York Mets and Dodger Stadium erupted.

With what, I’m not exactly sure.

There were some of the loudest cheers heard here this season.

There were also some of the deepest boos.

There were people standing and clapping . . . surrounded by people sitting and gesturing.

Call it unbridled ambiguity.

Five innings later, when Piazza stepped up again in the heat of an eventual 3-1 Met victory, the boos loudly overwhelmed the cheers.

He worked the count to 2-and-2 against Kevin Brown, fouled off four pitches, then deposited a straying inside fastball into the left-field seats for his 34th homer.

At which point, incredibly, he received a standing ovation.

And the message was clear.

As confused as this town is about the Dodgers’ future, it is just as confused about the past.

Half of the people apparently love Mike Piazza. The other half hate him.

And seemingly nobody knows quite how to handle the fact that he is no longer a Dodger.

Still the most famous player in town even though he will probably never play for the town team again, Piazza doesn’t get it.

“You have to turn the page, you have to move on,” he said before Thursday’s game, his voice slightly rising, almost pleading. “It’s history. It’s done. It’s done.”

If only it were.

Thursday was poignant reflection of what has been evident around here since the day Dodger blue turned to black.

The deal that Fox’s Chase Carey cut behind everyone’s back? The one that has made May 15 the most infamous date in club history?

Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile to the Florida Marlins for Gary Sheffield, Jim Eisenreich, Bobby Bonilla, Charles Johnson and minor leaguer Manuel Barrios?

Turns out, it was not a trade, it was a wound.

Turns out, it was a cut so deep, 16 months later it is still there.

Some have treated it, dealt with it, looked past it.

Those are the ones who cheer Mike Piazza. They cheer him for the memories, for the five consecutive .300 seasons, the four seasons of 30-plus homers, the three seasons of 100-plus RBIs.

“I hope they remember me as a guy who played hard, as hard as I could, a guy who left his heart on the field,” Piazza said.

Others cannot. For them, the wound is still raw, the pain still evident every time they look at an organization that has spiraled downward since his departure.

Those are the ones who boo Mike Piazza. They boo him because he could have stayed if he accepted the Dodger offer to make him the highest-paid player in baseball, and not made statements that implied he was too distracted by negotiations to play his best.

“There were mistakes made on both sides . . . everybody in life has regrets,” Piazza said. “Now, I’m just trying to turn the page.”

Easy for him. He works 3,000 miles from here.

The wound has been open for so long now, it has gotten bigger than the person who caused it. It has become symbolic of every wound inflicted afterward.

Last year’s midseason firings of Bill Russell and Fred Claire? The experts shrugged and said it started with the trade of Piazza.

The decimation of the farm system? Caused by the Piazza trade.

The Dodgers talking about leaving Chavez Ravine, changing uniforms, moving spring training from Vero Beach? Piazza again.

It’s a wonder that when Raul Mondesi ripped his bosses recently, somebody didn’t claim that Piazza had written the script.

Piazza understandably wants us to move ahead. But until the organization moves ahead, how can we?

I never thought it would get this big.

At the time of the trade, I wrote in this space that Piazza was becoming a bigger distraction than attraction. I wrote that because the team never won a playoff game with him, they couldn’t do any worse without him, particularly with Sheffield and Johnson.

He was gone at the end of the season anyway, right? If he was just going to pout, get him out.

Under the old regime, I may have been have right.

But Fox, mishandling virtually everything until it signed Kevin Brown seven months later, proved me wrong.

Come to find out, this suddenly unsteady organization needed Mike Piazza more than he needed it.

Turns out, the complaining he did about his contract was just a whisper compared to the griping his former teammates have done since then.

And today, I admit, I miss him.

Despite his clubhouse aloofness, I miss his on-field stability. Even with his October disappearances, I miss his September presence.

Part of me wanted to cheer him Thursday for taking another team toward the playoffs.

Part of me wanted to boo him for leaving us behind.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].