Mike Lupica: "MO RIVERA IS THE MOST IMPORTANT YANKEE OF ALL TIME"

• From Lupica's NY Daily News column today (8/13/06), "It's Time to Face the Truth," (part about Rivera begins mid-page):

"You watched Mo Rivera cough one up the other night as he does maybe once a month, and were reminded again that he might not just be the most valuable Yankee of the Joe Torre era,

• but perhaps the most valuable Yankee of all time.

He does not make the most money on the Yankees, or even close.

He is not the most famous of them.

Just the best of them, after all these years.

He is the one player on his team better at what he does than any others are at what they do.

• Of all the money players in the history of sports, and that means all sports, Mo Rivera has failed less in big spots than anybody else you can mention.

Think about that.

He has had his failures, you bet.

Some of them turned out to be monumental, like Game 7 of the 2001 World Series and Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS against the Red Sox.

But more than the manager, more than Jeter, he has done the most to make this time in Yankee history special.

• He is the one who makes us believe the championship teams of the Torre era were better than they actually were.

• The quietest one of all, then, one of the quietest Yankees of them all,

• has been the most important.

Sometimes it takes a ninth inning belonging to the other guys to make you appreciate him all over again.

Mo Rivera can't go on forever.

• This may be the last season we see him close to being his best.

• Appreciate him for as long as this lasts, just because nothing like this will ever happen again in baseball.

His streak of power relief pitching, excellence in power relief pitching, is as impressive as Cal Ripken's consecutive games played streak."

• I believe Mr. Lupica is a Red Sox fan. In any case, he knows much more about this subject than all the cheap frauds at ESPN, THE VAST NETWORK OF WRITERS FOR ESPN.COM, FOXsports.com, MLB, etc. I don't believe he's pitching assignments from any of these, unlike perhaps BOB KLAPISCH, SAM BORDEN, JACK CURRY, SHELDON OCKER, COREY BROCK, MATT HURST, JOE GROSS, ALL THE GUYS AT NEWSDAY AND THE NY POST, KEVIN KENNEDY, ROB DIBBLE, MARK PATRICK, TONY MASSAROTTI, DAN SHAUGHNESSY, et al.

AND, SPECIAL GREETINGS TO THE MOST UNINFORMED OF ALL***Peter Schmuck & Jack O'Connell. Honorable mention to***DAVE SHEININ***Dave, your words live on.

• As Mr. Lupica knows along with anyone else who's been paying attention, YOU'LL NEVER SEE ANYONE LIKE THIS AGAIN IN HUMAN HISTORY. YOU GUYS WOULD RATHER DIE THAN ADMIT THAT TRUTH--YET YOU'VE SAID YOU'RE THE MORAL GUARDIAN OF MLB....Try another one, Pete.

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