Mariano Rivera Highlights

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"It shouldn't be Rivera's fault that he makes it look so easy.

• He's never won a Cy Young (including coming in 2nd to Bartolo Colon in 2005 in what must be one of

• the most serious oversights in recent MLB Award history) and

• has only gotten as high as 9th in the MVP voting in his career—this despite

that every single team in baseball would trade half their farm systems for Rivera at any point in his career.

• His 1.0199 WHIP puts him at 3rd...
• in the history of baseball.

• His adjusted ERA of 199 ranks him 1st
  
• in the history of the game....

• by 45 points."...

from andaplayertobenamedlater.blogspot.com, 'The Greatest Pitchers I ever saw.' 3/27/09

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Above 3/19/09, ap

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photo from NYYFans, posted under, 'A sight for sore eyes', spring training game v the Pirates, 3/17/09, spring debut

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Wall St. Journal Daily fix, 3/12/09: "Mariano Rivera, who turns 40 this year, had perhaps the best season of his Hall of Fame career last season. The New York Yankees closer posted career-low marks in earned run average relative to the league average, walks per inning and walks plus hits per inning. And he did it all with one of the most predictable repertoires in baseball. ...

• “The fact that hitters can more or less time themselves to within a hundredth of a second of when to swing

• and still can’t do anything about Rivera’s pitches

speaks volumes,” Graham Goldbeck writes (in Beyond the Box Score). The secret appears to be Rivera’s excellent placement and the variety of movement on the ball, depending on how much spin he applies.

Because Rivera is so consistent with his pitch selection, he was a logical candidate for an analysis by Dan Turkenkopf, also on Beyond the Box Score, about the location of his pitches depending on the game situation. Turkenkopf uses a concept called leverage index, which measures how critical a given at-bat is to the game’s outcome (the index is higher in the late innings of a close game, lower in the early innings with a lopsided score).

• Conventional wisdom holds that pitchers throw more balls down the middle of the plate in unimportant situations than in critical ones.
  

• But there’s no strong effect for Rivera.
  

That could say more about his confidence in the movement of his cutter than it does about pitchers’ typical approach in low-leverage situations." by Carl Bialik

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"Sports compel us to watch because of the Great Unwritten Script. We watch for drama. We watch to see whether Papi Ortiz does it again. And through that drama, we determine greatness.

• How did we know Jordan was great? It wasn't all the dunks. It was the general Jordan-ness, all the flying through the air, parlayed with the drama: the shots that beat Georgetown in the NCAA championship game, the Cavs in the playoffs and the Jazz in the finals....

How do we know Mariano Rivera is great?

• Because he gets the biggest outs in the biggest games
  

• more times than anybody else ever has."...

3/11/09, TheDay.com, Hartford,

• "UConn Women's Celebration Teaches us all a Lesson" by Mike DiMauro
  

(3/9/09): "With his final swing of the racquet, Andy Roddick sent the ball soaring into the BJCC Arena stratosphere, or at least the upper reaches of the upper deck.

• And like so many other shots Roddick hit in Sunday's Davis Cup first-round finals, Swizerland's Stanislas Wawrinka had no chance of returning that one, either....

The 26-year-old has become the most dominant closer in U.S. Davis Cup history, running his record to 11-0 in Davis Cup-clinching matches

• and prompting comparisons to Mariano Rivera, the New York Yankees’ closer
  

• who is considered one of the best of all time."...'Roddick Shows Why he's US Team's Closer,' Birmingham (AL) News
  

Rivera carries Panamanian flag at inaugural ceremonies in Puerto Rico for the World Baseball Classic. With him is young Carmelo Melendez. Photo from El Nuevo Dia.

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(NY Times): SAN JUAN, P.R. — "Mariano Rivera walked off a plane here Friday, strolled toward the baggage claim area and seemed edgy. Rivera, the normally stoic closer, was trying to plot the rest of a rare day apart from the Yankees.

“I need to work out, man,” he said. “I need to find a place to work out.”

• While Rivera traveled here to be an ambassador for Panama in the World Baseball Classic for two days, he is a Yankee 365 days a year. Rivera is slowly recovering from shoulder surgery, so he cannot pitch in the 16-team tournament. But he needed to toss a baseball to keep getting ready for another season.

“Do you know what time Panama is working out?” Rivera asked a reporter.

When Rivera was told that Panama’s workout had ended 30 minutes earlier, he cringed. It was too late for Rivera to join his Panamanian teammates — his teammates in spirit, at least. Rivera will wear Panama’s uniform for Saturday’s game against Puerto Rico, something he implored the Yankees to allow....

• Rivera knew that he could not pitch, but he explained why he wanted to be here as a proud Panamanian. At the age of 39, Rivera may not get another chance....

Rivera is revered in Panama, a place where he grew up using a cardboard box as his first glove

• and where he did not see a grass field.

The skinny son of a fisherman named Capt. Mariano, he was signed for $3,500 and has developed

• into the best closer in baseball history.

At Panama’s opener on Saturday, Rivera will be the flag bearer for the team and then act as a cheerleader. Héctor López, Panama’s manager and a former Yankee, would love to have Rivera as his closer. Instead, López noted how Rivera’s presence would help his players. Imagine Tom Hanks hanging out on the set of an independent film to encourage the actors. That is basically what Rivera is doing.

• Bernie Williams was unaware that Rivera, his former Yankees teammate, was here, but he nodded when told what Rivera was doing. Williams, who is playing for Puerto Rico, said Rivera was a caring person who knew how to be gracious and benevolent.

“He’s making a great example to the young kids on that team to show them that playing baseball is not about the individual,” Williams said. “It’s about the team. In this case, it’s about your country.”

• As a sweaty Williams sat on a golf cart, he spoke reverentially about Rivera. Williams watched Rivera act as a mentor to many Latin American players on the Yankees, and he predicted Rivera would do the same, in a condensed manner, for Panama.

“Those kids will remember it for the rest of their lives,” Williams said."..."Rivera Supports Panama with Presence but not a Glove," 3/6/09, Jack Curry

• From SI.com on Team Panama, 3/6/09

"The weakest of the Latin American entries, Panama was winless in the last WBC

• due largely to an impotent offense. That won't change much this year

as Astros left fielder Carlos Lee remains the only big bat on the team and is coming off a season ended early by a broken finger. A Panamanian team without Mariano Rivera is like a Taiwanese team without Chien-Ming Wang,

• but Rivera wouldn't make this team much better.

• Closers are of little use on teams unlikely to get many leads,

which makes it all the more unfortunate that relievers Manuel Corpas and Manny Acosta are two of the just three other active major leaguers on the roster (weak-hitting Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz is the third)."