Mariano Rivera Highlights

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Team members put together commemoration gifts for Mariano and Derek's
achievements this year. photos from ceremony before game with Royals. top and bottom, ap photos, 2nd getty, 3rd reuters, stubblebine.

• NY Times Fifth Down Blog,
  

"Maybe it’s too early to compare them to Mariano Rivera,

• but don’t the Jets look good protecting the lead
  
• late in a close game?

The defense did it again yesterday in a 24-17 victory over Tennessee. One week after slamming the door on Tom Brady and the Patriots in the final minute of a 16-9 victory, the Jets’ defense shut it on Kerry Collins and the Titans (or was it the Oilers?) —

• and did it with the same authority with which Rivera dispatches opponents."...

9/28/09 by George Bretherton, "Jets Open Thread: Defense is 2 for 2 in Save Situations"

Labels: Jets protecting late leads compared to Mariano Rivera

• "The first real celebration at the new Yankee Stadium began with a most familiar scene — Mariano Rivera on the mound, closing out another clinching victory."...ap story in Boston Herald
  

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Mariano with Jose Molina and Mark Teixeira after Sunday's 4-2 win
over the Red Sox at the stadium. reuters photos, Stapleton, Segar,
Stubblebine, US Sport

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• photo above by John Dunn via Newsday
  

"After 99 other victories this season, after all the comebacks on this side of 161st St., the Yankees were putting some official winning into the new place, about five minutes after 5 Sunday afternoon. They were winning the American League East with style, with one more comeback, this one against the Red Sox, and

• so of course it had to come down to Mariano Rivera over here, the way it always did over there.

The game had started late because of rain but now there was enough sun out in the top of the ninth that Brett Gardner even lost J.D. Drew's short fly ball to center. And the Red Sox had second and third with two out in a 4-2 game, which meant that a hit from Jacoby Ellsbury tied the game.

• Only Ellsbury wasn't hitting Rivera, who was here to close out the division again, who was going to make this
  

• one more day of baseball when he was
  

• the greatest money pitcher in the history of the game.

"There is nothing he could do," Derek Jeter said Sunday, "that you haven't seen from him before."

• So Rivera broke Ellsbury's bat with the first inside cutter he threw him and finally he got one in on the kid's hands again and the ball rolled to Mo Rivera's left and he picked up and underhanded it to Mark Teixeira at first and the Yankees had gotten to 100 and won the East and done that with their second sweep of the Red Sox in the last couple of months. Some day. Some season.

The game started Sunday with a clean single to left from Jeter in the bottom of the first and ended with the ball in Rivera's right hand again. Andy Pettitte got the win Sunday. So much has been new this season, so much has changed. Just not everything. If everything goes the way the Yankees want it to, there will be another ending like this, to a much bigger game, the first week of November,

• the ball back in the great Rivera's hands at the end of another World Series.

• So now there have been two games to remember from this September, two ways the Yankees have properly christened the new place. There was the Friday night against the Orioles when Jeter broke Lou Gehrig's record for career hits by a Yankee. Now this. Now this sweep of the Red Sox on the last weekend of September, the Yankees coming all the way back from 0-8 early against Boston to even the series at 9-9 and give Boston plenty to think about if the two teams do it again in the American League Championship Series.

The Yankees, who have hit all year, really got to 100 Sunday with pitching, from Pettitte and Phil Coke and Brian Bruney and Rivera, who got his 44th save a couple of months short of his 40th birthday. Before the game Sunday Jeter was asked to talk about the season and he looked up and said, "We pitch.""

• After Missing out on Playoffs in 2008, Yankees Storm back to Rightful Place, " by Mike Lupica, NY Daily News, 9/28/09

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above image by getty, 9/27/09 at the stadium

Labels: Rivera the greatest money pitcher in history of baseball-Lupica

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Rivera ninth inning v Red Sox, final score 3-0. Bottom photo tag
says he was checking something with an umpire. getty photos

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Top 2 photos Mariano Rivera with President of Panama Ricardo Martinelli after he threw a ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium, 9/25/09. by reuters, Stubblebine. Bottom 3 photos of recent tidal flood devastation in Rivera's hometown, Puerto Caimito, Panama by La Prensa, 9/23/09. Story of flood via BTF. Mariano didn't have to pitch tonight, Yankees won 9-5. Baseball in Panama is an international disgrace, hopes are President Martinelli will solve some of the problems.

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• Final score 3-2 Yankees. getty photo
  

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Mariano Rivera #42, Brett Gardner, after 6-5 win in
Anaheim, 9/22/09. getty photo, top version from Newsday, 9/23

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After Francisco Cervelli's game winning single, 5-4 over Toronto. Mo was
winning pitcher. ap photo

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Rivera throws to first for the final out in the 5-3 game v the
Angels. All three of his outs were ground balls. ap photo.

• "But when it comes to the all-time Yankee greats, Jeter is sitting at the children's table, while Babe Ruth, Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra dine in style.

I don't even think Jeter is the best Yankee of this era. Who has been more important to the Yanks over the course of their run,

• Jeter or Mariano Rivera?
  

• Forget being the best Yankee, I think
  

• Rivera is the best player of this generation, period.

Yet I am seeing all these lists over the last few days that have Jeter listed right behind the Big-5, with Mariano Rivera a few slots behind him. The things that make Rivera, namely his consistent dominance, reliability and professionalism,

• are the same reasons he is underrated.
  

When it is all said and done, Rivera is the one who is going to be sitting at the big table and rightfully so.

• Not a slight to Jeter,
  

• but he is not Mariano Rivera.

To me, Derek Jeter's career is defined in two plays, the amazing flip in the ALDS against Oakland in 2001, and his tumbling catch into the stands against Boston in 2004. That is who Derek Jeter is. He is one of the most instinctively sound and clutch players I have ever seen and puts one thing above everything else, and that is winning.

• Jeter's value has always been based on team accomplishments and the unmatched intangibles he brings to the game. Don't start trying to make it about the numbers with him now, because all you do is diminish why he is held in such high regard."
  

"The House that Jeter Built?" by Chris Ruddick, The Sports Network, KansasCity.com, 9/10/09

Labels: Mariano Rivera best player of this generation-Chris Ruddick

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Mariano congratulates Derek Jeter on the night of his Yankee hits record.
photo by NY Daily News

• ""You are going to hear something tonight," Mo Rivera had said before the game. "From all the years."...

• The Yankees came for Jeter now. First they were up on the top of the dugout steps and then on the field when the ball was past Scott and into right. Now they were slowly walking toward first base. Mo Rivera was there, and Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte, who have done so much winning with Jeter. And you imagined Paul O'Neill with them, and Bernie, and Tino Martinez, too.

They hugged him, one by one. Mo said something to him, so did Posada. The ovation would not stop. Above it all, they were chanting Jeter's name, the way the bleachers do in the top of the first, only it wasn't just the bleachers now, it was the whole place. There have been so many comebacks this season, and so many times when the crowd over here tried to sound like sellouts used to sound on the other side of 161st St. But the place had never sounded like this. This sound for Jeter.

• The Yankees finally left the field. The people would not stop cheering, would not stop chanting Jeter's name. Now he took off his helmet and waved it at the crowd, and then he pointed into the crowd. It only made the place louder.

"You are going to hear something tonight," Mo Rivera had said before the game. "From all the years."

• Now here it was, bottom of the third, Yankees ahead 3-1, Jeter with the hit that put him past Gehrig. So much of this over the last week has been silly, out of proportion to the record. This was not. This wasn't marketing or hype now. This was real now at the Stadium....

He showed up for good in 1996 and the Yankees won it all and won three more times through October of 2000 and he became the face of the franchise as much as any player ever has. Last night was about that. You can only imagine what it will be like around here when he does get closer to 3,000.

• None of this was Jeter's doing. Or the Yankees' doing.
  

• The media lost its head over this one. There is no big game for the Yankees until October.

The Gehrig record gave everybody a chance to have a party. It ended last night, after a long rain delay, in the third against the Orioles, a single to right by the biggest sports star in town....

• He is not the player Ruth was, or Gehrig, or Mantle,
  
• or even Mo Rivera.
  

A-Rod's numbers will all be bigger someday. Jeter isn't Joe DiMaggio. But in so many ways, the way he has carried himself, what he has meant, he has been this era's DiMaggio....

• The Yankees have tried too hard this season to move history and tradition across the street. People sure tried hard this week to make it seem like Jeter was trying to break DiMaggio's 56. But it was all real enough last night in the bottom of the third, when the Stadium cheered Jeter the way it did. And when he pointed back at them, it was as if the captain of the Yankees was cheering them back."
  

9/12/09, from Mike Lupica column , NY Daily News, "At New Stadium, Yankee Captain Derek Jeter hears that old Roar from the Crowd."

Labels: Mariano congratulates Derek Jeter

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Final score over Tampa Bay 4-1. The Rays' Matt Garza did a great job, but
as Suzyn mentioned he has the lowest run support in the American League.
photos getty

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• Final score 9-6. getty photos

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• In Camden Yards during Andy's gem, final 5-1. Mo relieved Bruney who put 2 Orioles on base. top photo k.allison flickr, bottom getty photo