9/28/13, "
Mariano Rivera: A Zen Master With a Mean Cutter," NY Times, Michiko Kakutani
"In a game in which perfection is elusive, he was reliably sublime.
In the high-stress vocation of ninth-inning pitching dominated by
theatrical personalities, he was the embodiment of Zen calm — a cool
Jedi master among the hotheads, and an almost extraplanetary source of
composure and grace in the gritty, often chaotic world of Major League
Baseball.
He was the reliever who arrived to the strains of Metallica’s “Enter
Sandman,” a closer who dependably delivered closure — turning out the
lights on the league’s best hitters, shutting almost every door. He was
feared as the
Yankees’
silent killer, their one infallible weapon — Mr. Automatic. But he was
also the one member of the Evil Empire so respected by enemy fans that
he was feted, in this, his final year, in other ballparks across the
country, including
Fenway Park in Boston, where he was hailed as “a real gentleman, a fierce competitor and a most worthy opponent.”
Mariano Rivera
understood what Steve Jobs, Lao Tzu and Bruce Lee understood: that
simplicity is an art and a strength, a source of joy and beauty and
power. The greatest closer of all time, who could become the first
player to win unanimous election to the Hall of Fame, did it all with
basically one pitch: the
cut fastball.
It moved with such velocity and wizardry that it seemed to defy the
laws of physics, breaking hundreds of bats and shattering many more
dreams. It was a pitch delivered with easy elegance and brutal economy, a
pitch Rivera could tailor with such precision and infinitude of detail
that it flummoxed even the most canny and experienced batters.
It was also a pitch that underscored an almost perfect fusion of
character and style. As Yankees Manager Joe Girardi has pointed out,
baseball is what the deeply religious Rivera does, it’s not who he is.
But who Rivera is — a consummate professional, stoic, focused, dedicated
and at peace with himself — has indelibly imprinted the way he has gone
about the job: his unparalleled consistency and longevity, his grace
under pressure, and his ability to come back from adversity, be it a
blown save or his potentially devastating ligament tear in 2012.
Over the years, the arithmetic of Rivera’s career has been dazzling: 652
regular-season saves, including 44 this season through Friday at age
43. His postseason numbers have been even more stunning: 42 saves, with a
mind-boggling 0.70 earned run average in 141 innings. The Yankees would
not have won five championships from 1996 to 2009 without him; he got
the final outs in the last four of those World Series.
But math alone cannot communicate Mariano’s achievement, his almost
otherworldly control of the ball, or his aura as a great warrior,
gentleman and mensch. Colleagues, fans and journalists have struggled to
find words to convey his accomplishments, and his heart and soul and
will — his steely determination on the mound and his humor and charm off
the field.
ABC’s Robin Roberts observed that it was rarer to score an earned run
off Rivera in the postseason than to walk on the moon. The former Mets
manager Bobby Valentine once said: “No one else throws a 94-mile-an-hour
cutter. It’s like bird watching in a foreign land. You can’t understand
it.” Rivera’s teammate David Robertson, who may inherit his job,
called him “the most consistent human being to ever play the game of baseball.”
One baseball analyst attributed Rivera’s success to the “three C’s” —
“control, control, control.”
Another attributed it to the “four C’s” —
“confidence, concentration, control and competitiveness.” To which a
Yankees fan might add even more alliteration: constancy, calm, class,
composure, continuity and complete command of craft.
People have compared Rivera to Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky to
convey his soaring talent and just how indispensable he has been to his
team. Explaining Rivera’s mystique goads others to reach for analogies
outside sports to describe the indescribable, comparing his artistry to
that of famous musicians and painters, his tenacity and mental toughness
to that of Navy SEALs, his sleight of hand to the legerdemain of a
Harry Potter or Houdini.
Rivera himself was succinct and to the point about
his job: “I get the ball, I throw the ball, and then I take a shower.”
For fans who grew up watching No. 42 or have followed him for the last
19 seasons, he has become the embodiment of the Yankees at their very
best: not the big-spending, patched-together All-Star team that chased
after the likes of Randy Johnson, Gary Sheffield and Kevin Brown, but
the team that Rivera, along with Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge
Posada and Bernie Williams, defined. The team always came first for
these homegrown Yankees, and they played with brotherly dedication and
collective pride.
Rivera’s retirement is a melancholy moment for the Yankees and their
fans. Williams retired in 2006, Posada last played in 2011, and Pettitte
was scheduled to pitch his final game Saturday. Jeter will be the only
one to return next year — and to a team in need of reimagining and
rebuilding, and possibly fated to some long years in the baseball
wilderness.
That the beloved and seemingly ageless Sandman is exiting this year not
only means the end of a golden era, but also reminds us of the swift and
unrelenting passage of time. The perfect ending everyone yearned for
after the Rivera tribute last Sunday at Yankee Stadium was a win for
Andy and a save for Mariano, but that was not to be. And yet, the larger
narrative of Rivera’s career remains a storybook one.
The son of a fisherman, he grows up playing baseball on a beach in
Panama with a milk carton for a glove, a stick for a bat and whatever
was available for a ball; after being
signed by a Yankees scout
for $3,500, he does his apprenticeship in the minors, joins the Yankees
and struggles at first, and then suddenly hits his stride. He wins a
championship in 1996 as the setup man for John Wetteland and, soon,
leaps into hyperspace as the closer, becoming such a feared adversary
that opponents will talk about needing to win games against the Yankees
in seven or eight innings before he takes the mound.
In the last month or so, the pace of Rivera tributes has accelerated,
within baseball and the news media, and also among fans on Twitter and
Facebook, on radio call-in shows, and even in an AT&T-sponsored “
Thanks for the Mo-Ments”
promotion. They recite Rivera’s luminous stats, cite songs (like Nat
King Cole’s “Unforgettable” or Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye”) they would
dedicate to him, and trade memories of his clutch performances: those
emotional World Series wins;
Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series against the Red Sox (won in 11 innings by Aaron Boone’s home run); his
record- setting 602nd save with a perfect ninth inning against the Minnesota Twins in September 2011.
Such outpourings of love are a testament to the intimate and deeply felt
karmic relationship that has developed over two decades between Rivera
and Yankee fans, and New York City — a relationship that has been
heightened, perhaps, by his job as the closer. No one has been more of a
team player than the humble and loyal Rivera, and yet his was a
strangely solitary job: taking the field not alongside his teammates but
alone, at the end, with the heavy responsibility of saving the game for
them all.
The photographs and videos of Rivera running toward the mound from the
bullpen — shot from behind,
No. 42 starkly outlined on his impeccably
crisp pinstripes — have given way to similar images (in newspapers, and
on T-shirts and souvenir pins) showing him striding not into the
electric blur of Yankee Stadium but into some less immediately
recognizable realm. Jogging into the future and retirement. And through
the gates of Cooperstown and into the forever of history."
============================
10/8/13, "
Zen Pastor Mariano Rivera and his vague, comforting karma," patheos.com
"
The whole point of the article is to try to describe the source of
Rivera’s remarkable maturity, his calmness, his class, his wisdom and
the grace with which he related to others. Clearly, this has something
to do with religion.
The article makes this clear — kind of. In terms of pure sports, the
art of of his legendary cut fastball is at the heart of it story. But so
is, well, this man’s soul."...
--------------------------------------
Comment: The author of the 10/8/13 patheos.com piece
notices that the 'C' word (Christianity) isn't mentioned in the NY Times article.
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Mariano Rivera pulling in fishing net on boat, date unknown, picture from an SI.com vault 
9/3/13, Vernon Wells beats the tag, steals home, Reuters 
