Mariano Rivera Highlights: March 2008

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Mariano Rivera broke Goose Gossage's strikeout record in 1996

From Joel Sherman: "Rivera went 8-3 with a 2.09 ERA (regular season), held opponents to a .193 batting average,

and broke Goose Gossage's Yankee relief record of 122 strikeouts by fanning 130 in 107.2 innings.

Most amazingly, of the record 4,962 homers spanked in 1996, Rivera allowed just one,

to Baltimore's Rafael Palmeiro on June 28."

Page 208 from Joel Sherman's book, "Birth of a Dynasty," about the 1996 Yankees, published in 2006 by Rodale.

(Funny, Gossage has never mentioned this in his countless media appearances bashing Mariano). sm

# posted by susan @ 8:40 PM 0 comments

Friday, March 07, 2008

"Rivera set the tone..." Papelbon, 3/7/08

On signing his 1-year $775,000 deal, Jonathan Papelbon notes Mo:

"Rivera was the one that has kind of set the tone from the beginning, 10 years ago," Papelbon said. "Hopefully I can follow in his footsteps and do it for the next 10 years to come, when he's out of the game.

"I think the role of a closer is just now beginning to erupt and people are starting to understand how important a closer is to a ballclub --

especially a ballclub that wants to go win a championship.*

I think Rivera was the one that set the tone and established how important it is,

and I feel it's my job to go and do the same and carry on that tradition. Hopefully I can do that."

from MLB.com, 3/8/08

* The role of a closer erupted with Mo but the press put the spotlight elsewhere. They're still sputtering about it, running for the digitalis. (sm)

# posted by susan @ 8:51 PM 0 comments