Mariano Rivera Highlights

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Rivera with Russell Martin after game v Baltimore Orioles, 9/4/11, final 11-10, getty
4 stolen bases in the 9th.

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Rivera v Orioles, 9/5/11, photo by Pokress, Newsday

• "All day, there was no hype."...

9/5/11, "Rivera stoic as milestone nears," Newsday, Mark Herrmann (subscrip.)

"This one time, Mariano Rivera, not a big numbers guy, came up with a statistic on demand. He was asked to quantify his excitement about being so close to 601, the magic figure for saves, and he instantly produced an answer.

"None," he said.

He had just secured No. 597 in his markedly quiet march toward... a saves record of 601, and he all but said, big deal.

"My assignment is to win the games. That's what it is," Rivera said after an unusually eventful ninth inning of an eventful 11-10 win over the Orioles at Yankee Stadium. "Today was one of those games when I had to battle, battle to the end. That's the way it was."

Rivera is well past worrying about style points, so he was not concerned about having given up a run on two hits and a hit batsman. Nor was he upset about having allowed the potential go-ahead run to reach second before he struck out J.J. Hardy to end it. It was just another day on which he did his job.

He did it for the 38th time this season and he closed in on a milestone, but you didn't hear it from him. His first order of business afterward was making sure his sons were behaving in the clubhouse.

• All day, there was no hype, no hoopla about the countdown....

"It's a great number, don't get me wrong," Rivera said. "But at the same time, I don't look at it. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. That's the way I am. I don't lose sleep because of that.""