Damon faces Mo, July 14, 2005 at Fenway Park

I bring this up only because of the deluge of misleading information you see that tries to lump Mariano in with other so-called closers. By the way, in this game, he came on in the 9th and struck out Damon. Then, he struck out Renteria. Then, he struck out David Ortiz. I apologize--I realize that's nothing, a dime a dozen. As Tim Kurkjian implies in his recent article promoting Doug Jones for HOF, managers these days just throw in as many cookie-cutter saves as they can to justify the salary their closer is earning. You can check this out. This is a so-called baseball writer. The Yankees were down by 4 runs in the first inning, via Mussina. They were behind most of the game, & finally won by 2 runs. How much room for error did Mo and Joe Torre have? None. The Yankees were nobody's favorite at that time and desperately needed every game they could get. See, Tim, the high salary closer you reference who's tossed cookies by his manager was NEVER Mariano Rivera. Do you think Joe Torre might like to help Mo out with a few cookies, after all Mo's done for the team for 11 straight years & 11 straight post seasons? Other managers can help out in this way-- why don't you ever mention those guys, Tim? I'll tell you why. Because if you did, it would make Mo look better & everyone else look worse. And that's 1 thing all you guys are desperate to do. Keep Mo from his rightful recognition. Try to hold your breath for a couple more years, then he'll be gone. That's all you're thinking now.(The game was just replayed on the YES network---I apologize again...so sorry).

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