(All photos in the public domain)
I wanted to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about Mariano Rivera. Before the Yankees' game against Kansas City on Thursday, Rivera tore his right ACL shagging fly balls during batting practice. It was announced the next day that he would be out for the remainder of the season. On Friday morning, before he announced that he was planning on coming back for 2013, I wrote a little something about what he meant to me. I wanted to let the news sink in before I wrote anything. Here is what I wrote that morning.
---
The accomplishments of Mariano Rivera speak for themselves. I don't need to recant the stats in the regular season and postseason that prove that he is indeed the greatest relief pitcher of all time. I don't need to make the argument that he might be one of the ten best pitchers to ever toe a rubber. Those cases make themselves, certainly there is nothing I could say to further prove them. But I do want to talk about what the man has meant to me over the course of my childhood.
The Yankees have always been an extremely important part of my life. They have always been there whenever I needed to escape stress from the real world. There have always been a few constants, with Rivera being one of them. For every Yankee memory I have, Rivera is there.
The 2000 World Series, my first real baseball memory, game 5 at Shea Stadium. A light popup to centerfield, Bernie Williams camps under it, and the Yankees win the World Series. And there was Rivera on the mound, making the last pitch, clinching the title, doing what he does best.
Or my favorite baseball memory of all, game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. Aaron Boone takes a Tim Wakefield knuckle ball into the left field seats at the old Yankee Stadium to clinch the pennant in the 11th inning. And there was Rivera, kneeling on the mound, crying his eyes out as Boone touched home. Rivera pitched 3 scoreless in that game. Boone is what's remembered, but Mo is what won the series. So overcome with emotion, that all he could was cry on the mound. And because of it, he was carried off the field in the arms of his teammates as he tipped his cap to the fans.
Then there's the favorite memory of my life. August 9, 2005. Not a memorable date for baseball reasons, but for me it marked a special occasion. I was given the opportunity to go inside the Yankees dugout, and outside of their clubhouse. I sat next to Joe Torre, and shook hands with Jorge Posada. I even got to have a 5 second conversation with Derek Jeter. But then there was Mo. I was this wide-eyed 12 year old. I remember looking around the tunnel area outside the clubhouse. I see this shadowy figure coming down the steps of the dugout. A skinny, tall man walking slowly with this calmness and confidence. It was #42. There was Mo, this living legend, this icon, the greatest of all time. And there I was, a little kid, simply in awe of what I saw. My voice squeaked, "Mo!" He looked at me with that famous smile, and with the same soft spoken tone he has patented he said back at me, "Hey buddy, how you doing?" The rest of the conversation is blurry to me because I couldn't believe who I was standing next to. I had this book of pictures, and I flipped to the one of him, and handed him a marker. He inked his elegant and simple signature on the photo. He handed me the book and said, "Enjoy buddy," still smiling. All I could muster was, "thank you." Not thank you for the autograph, of course I meant that too, but thank you for all that you have done for the team that means so much to me. Thank you for closing, and being so damn good at it.
Forgive me if I'm a little understated, or cliche, but it's hard for me to put the words down on the page. Thinking that this might be the end, with the way it happened, it's difficult to find the right things to say that would do his accomplishments justice. He's a great pitcher, but he's an even better human being. So for this injury to possibly cause the end of one of the most remarkable careers in sports history just doesn't seem right. Last night when I heard he tore his ACL, I almost cried. I had to fight back tears, it goes way beyond being a Yankee fan or a Mariano fan, it was about feeling for this incredible person.
So if this is the end, thank you Mo. Words fall short here because of all you've done, but thank you for everything you've meant to me and my team. God bless and I hope you have an easy recovery.
---
Obviously we know now that Mariano is planning on returning in 2013, which certainly changed my mood and made me feel a lot better. I never should've thought this would be the end, that wouldn't be Mo. Of course he was going to come back, nobody knows how to close like Mo, and what a better way to finish off a career than a triumphant return to the Bronx.
