Tuesday, April 21, 2015

 

Mariano Rivera and Joe Torre at Southern Connecticut State Lyman Center

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4/20/15, "Yankee greats Mariano Rivera, Joe Torre entertain sold-out crowd at SCSU," New Haven Register, David Borges

"Joe Torre stood up, stuck out his right arm and made the call to the “bullpen.”

The power chords of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” blasted out of the speakers, and to a thunderous applause, out came Mariano Rivera.

It was like 1998 all over again at Southern Connecticut State’s Lyman Center for the Performing Arts on Monday. A sold-out crowd heard Torre and Rivera — “Joe and Mo” — talk about numerous topics in a panel discussion hosted by ESPN’s Linda Cohn: playing for George Steinbrenner (“I didn’t get the same George as Billy Martin had to deal with,” said Torre. “I got George on the back nine”); the batter Rivera least liked to face (Edgar Martinez); whether Rivera had ever even heard of Metallica before their song became his anthem (“Never in my life”).

It was all part of the 17th annual Mary and Louis Fusco Distinguished Lecture series.

The two had some strong opinions on the current state of baseball.

“Nowadays, players feel like this game has been waiting for them to show up,” said Torre, who skippered the Yankees to four world titles and is now chief baseball officer for Major League Baseball. “There’s a certain amount of entitlement, and not only in our sport, others, too, where they feel they’ve arrived before they’ve arrived. Mariano earned what he got.”

Both men were also not happy with the recent beanball incidents, most notably the events over the weekend with Oakland and Kansas City, where Oakland’s Brett Lawrie was thrown at — twice — after what the Royals considered a dirty takeout slide.

“That really bothers me, because somebody’s gonna get hurt,” said Torre, who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame last summer. “On the hitters’ side, if you throw anything close to them, they get a little upset.”

Added Rivera: “You know when it’s on purpose and when it’s not. Hitters nowadays want the whole plate. Pitchers need to find an area to be successful. Hitters are wearing armor — helmets, elbow pads ... and they’re out over the plate. So, where’s the plate for us?

Overall, however, both men seemed perfectly content in their post-Yankee lives. Rivera retired after the 2013 season, followed by Derek Jeter last season.

“It’s the first time you don’t have a schedule for these guys,” said Torre. “You can’t find Jeter. Every time you think he’s in this part of the country, he’s in a different part of the world.”
Torre and Rivera took several questions from the crowd.

“Mariano,” one youngster asked, “what did you do to break out of a slump?”

“He never had one,” Cohn quipped.

Another member of the audience asked Torre about attending Jeter’s final game at Yankee Stadium last fall against Baltimore. Torre noted that, with a runner on second and one out and Jeter coming up for perhaps his final at-bat, Jorge Posada — who was sitting behind Torre — whispered, “They’re gonna walk him intentionally.”

“If they do that,” Torre replied, “I’m gonna suspend (O’s skipper) Buck Showalter.”

Rivera said that the Yankees were the only team he wanted to play for, after watching them often as a kid in Panama because Panamanian native Roberto Kelly was on the team. He said winning became second nature once he donned the pinstripes.

“I was brainwashed in the minor leagues,” Rivera said. “Our goal was always to win. When you have an owner like George Steinbrenner, form Rookie Ball on, you’d better win. We grew up in that environment.”

And win they did, notching four World Series championships together. Rivera added a fifth in 2009 with Joe Girardi as skipper. They certainly won over the overflow crowd of over 1,500, many of them bedecked in Yankees gear. When Torre was first introduced by Cohn, he earned a long standing ovation.

“If anybody ever tells you you’re over the hill when you reach 55, you’re on the back nine, don’t believe it,” said Torre, who took over the Yankees’ helm in 1996 at that age. “That was the best time of my life.”

Then Rivera, the greatest closer in history who will undoubtedly join Torre in Cooperstown upon his initial eligibility in a few years, earned an even louder ovation when Torre made the call to the bullpen and Metallica blared overhead."


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