Mariano Rivera Highlights

Buddy Niederhoffer is the keeper of that conglomeration, one for each of Rivera’s regular-season saves for the Yankees. 

Niederhoffer, 36, a Yankees fan from the Bronx, became as mesmerized as major league hitters by Rivera’s cut fastball through the years. He said he was compelled to find a way to support Rivera after he tore his right anterior cruciate ligament last May while chasing a fly ball during batting practice before a Yankees game at Kansas City. 

“I thought something should be done for him because he has done so much for the Yankees and their fans and baseball in general,” said Niederhoffer, who is a massage therapist. “We’re talking about one of the all-time greats here. To me, Mariano is Picasso in pinstripes, hands down the best ever at what he does, and despite everything that has gone wrong in baseball, everything from collusion to steroids, Mariano remains one of the good guys.” 

So began Niederhoffer’s one-man crusade to collect a motley mix of signatures and kind words for Rivera on the pages of a well-traveled 8-by-10 sketchbook with a blue cover and dog-eared pages. Niederhoffer carried the book wherever he went from last June 23 to Oct. 3, the final day of the regular season. In the back pages, Niederhoffer glued photographs of some of the well-wishers while they signed the book....

The quest took him to barrooms and ballparks, movie theaters and spas, restaurants and concerts, clothing stores and banks, and subway cars and parks. Niederhoffer collected handwritten notes for Rivera from, among others, bartenders; hot dog vendors; the former major leaguers Tim Raines, John Franco and Mickey Rivers; the Newark Bears’ team chaplain; police officers; train conductors; Coast Guardsmen; his girlfriend, Karen Rossi; graffiti artists; bocce players; a girls’ softball team; his former sociology professor at Fordham; the Trenton Thunder mascot, Boomer; a dozen poets at the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe; Marc Anthony’s band director, Angel Fernandez; a man in his 90s who said he had seen Babe Ruth hit a home run at Yankee Stadium in 1932; and a homeless man at Lincoln Center.

One day at a coffee shop in Greenwich Village, Niederhoffer, sketchbook in hand, bumped into Brooke Shields with her two young daughters.

“You are missed!!” Shields wrote to Rivera as Niederhoffer took her picture. “Get better soon! We know you will! Our prayers are with you!” 

On another page, a Mister Softee man, whose truck had stopped in Niederhoffer’s Riverdale neighborhood, dropped his signature between the autographs of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. “Turns out the Mister Softee guy was from Panama, just like Mariano,” Niederhoffer said. “He was so thrilled, he even signed his son’s name.” 

On yet another page, the philosopher and scholar Cornel West, whom Niederhoffer also spotted at Lincoln Center, wrote: “To brother Mariano, Get Well Soon! Stay Strong! Love Cornel West.” 

Niederhoffer and his sketchbook also ventured into enemy territory. During a visit to Fenway Park, he said, he was careful not to incite Red Sox fans when asking if they might have a few kind words for Rivera, who has often shut down their team. “Some of those Red Sox fans looked at me like I had six heads,” Niederhoffer said. “But I took a low-key approach so none of them were overaggressive with me.” 

By the time he left Boston, 15 Red Sox fans had added their names to the unique get-well collection. One of them, however, would sign only her first name: “Even Red Sox fans wish you well!” a woman named Michelle wrote. 

Niederhoffer’s book contains good-will messages written in eight languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Hebrew, Spanish, Japanese and Tagalog. “This is as much a thank-you book as it is a get-well book,” Niederhoffer said. “This was intended as a gift to Mariano in case he was never able to throw another pitch.” 

Rivera, 43, is scheduled to be back with the Yankees for the start of training camp this week. Now that Rivera appears healthy again, Niederhoffer said, he would “like to get it into Mariano’s hands, somehow, some way.” 

A New York Times reporter who is heading to the Yankees’ camp in Tampa, Fla., has agreed to deliver the book to Rivera. “I think it would give him the kind of boost he gave us Yankees fans all these years,” Niederhoffer said. “And for that, I have hundreds of people to thank.”"  image from NY Times