A CUT ABOVE
ONE PITCH. ONE TEAM. A 1.000 WHIP, EVEN. Simplicity propelled Mariano Rivera to greatness. Now, however, as he prepares for his official baseball immortalization, the Yankees legend finds himself juggling about a million thoughts. “It’s too much,” a relaxed-looking Rivera said recently in a conversation with The Post at his Westchester home. “It’s too much to comprehend. It’s too much to try to analyze.”
On Jan. 22, Rivera and his family sat in this house and received a phone call from Baseball Writers Association of American secretary-treasurer Jack O’Connell, who delivered life-changing news: Not only did the writers elect Rivera to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first chance, a slam dunk from the day the closer threw his last cut fastball in 2013, but they made him the first candidate to receive 100 percent support on their ballot — 425 votes from 425 voters — establishing a high-water mark that can be matched, but not surpassed.
“You have 425 people. Four hundred twenty-five voters,” Rivera said. “Forty-two [his uniform number] plus five championships. [And] I ended up with 42 saves in the playoffs.”
An appreciation of such serendipity — not to mention such fun with numbers! — belies the straightforward, no-nonsense (if friendly) guy who dominated his way to what now ranks as his second-most famous record, his 652 regular-season saves. Such musings reflect a man who, first in retirement and then by attaining this highest distinction, has fully digested the enormity of his remarkable journey, which will reach its next step with Sunday’s Hall induction. For baseball’s most decorated Hall electee possesses one of its most remarkable
true underdog stories. Forget about him defying the odds by getting to Cooperstown via perfection. It represents a small miracle that the Yankees and Rivera discovered each other in the first place. IN A tiny Panamanian fishing village called Puerto Caimito, where his home had no telephone and featured an outhouse in the back, Rivera dropped out of ninth grade and worked on his father’s boat, helping to land and haul the catches.
“I was fishing because I wanted to save some money to build a garage, or a shop, so I could fix cars,” Rivera said. “And that would be my trade. That would be my business. That’s what I was thinking.”
Baseball served as a hobby and nothing more, a pleasant distraction from the grueling work on the boat. Until one day in 1989 when his team, Panama Oeste, needed a pitcher. As Rivera documented in his autobiography “The Closer,” written with Wayne Coffey, he fared well enough in his pitching debut that two of his teammates recommended him to Chico Heron, an area coach who scouted parttime for the Yankees.
“I was 20 years old [when he signed]. Twenty years old,” Rivera said. “I think the highest I threw was 87 [mph]. The highest.
IT’S THE PERFECT UNDERDOG STORY FOR A PERFECT HALL OF FAMER
Average 85. Twenty years old. One hundred sixty-nine [pounds] soaking wet. And they signed me.
“There’s no way in heaven that a scout sees someone today, at this time, throwing 87 the highest, average at 85, 20 years old, 169 pounds, and you would sign him. I’d say, ‘No, my son, you need to go and learn a trade because if you want to be a mechanic, that’s what you’re going to do.’ Because in baseball, you’d have no shot. That’s what someone will tell you today.”
The Yankees gave Rivera a $2,000 signing bonus to commit to them in 1990. Consider that Ken Griffey Jr., who posted the previous best-ever percentage on the writers’ ballot (99.32 percent) before Rivera scored 100 percent, turned professional in 1987, as the first-overall pick of the amateur draft for a signing bonus of $160,000 with the Mariners.
“All of a sudden, I’m throwing 90, 92, 94,” Rivera said. “I got surgery [to clean out his right elbow in 1992], came back from that, 96, 98.”
And even after he arose from obscurity to play a vital role in the Yankees’ 1996 title, becoming Joe Torre’s increasingly less secret weapon to set up for closer John Wetteland, Rivera came up with one more amazing story, after the Yankees promoted him to closing duties in 1997 while letting Wetteland leave for the Rangers.
“In ’96, I did great,” Rivera said. “I was trying to continue the same path, and it looked like I was moving in quicksand. I wasn’t doing anything right.”
To be specific, Rivera, who relied on a conventional four-seam fastball in ’96, blew three of his first six save opportunities in ’97 and tallied a 4.00 ERA in his first seven appearances.
“And then, one day I was playing catch with Ramiro [Mendoza],” he said, “and all of a sudden, the ball started moving. [Mendoza] is mad at me now. I’m looking at the ball. No scuff. I turned the ball over.
“At that point, I’m throwing the ball the same way I was to that moment. And the ball was straight. Normal, 96, 95, 94, 93, all the way to 26 years old. And the ball did the same thing. Now, at 27 years old, the ball is moving.”
Ah, the cutter. “Since that moment, the ball never stopped moving,” Rivera said. “All I did was try to learn to guide the pitch with different cuts. Deeper, shorter, then I’d move it to the left or right. That’s it. But the ball never stopped moving. From ’97 through 2013, the pitch was just the same. Everybody knew it was coming. The only thing that I didn’t do was tell them verbally. The only thing I didn’t do was say, ‘Hey guys, it’s coming!’ ” He dreamt small at the beginning. “I wasn’t looking for a closer’s job,” Rivera said. “I just wanted to be a bigleague pitcher and stay in the big leagues for at least eight to 10 years. That’s it. I didn’t care if it was as a starter, reliever, setup man, closer — I didn’t care. I just wanted to be a pitcher in the big leagues. A big-league player. That’s it.
“You give me 10 years, I save a little bit of my money, I’m going back home. And
that’s it. That’s it. I save some money, I [open] my dream garage and I learn my trade and I move on. Those were my thoughts.”
So much for that game plan. Nearly all of his family remains in Panama. Rivera and his wife, Clara, whom he has known since kindergarten, have lived in the United States full-time since 2001 and they are local royalty whose domain expands beyond Yankee Stadium (where he has a plaque in Monument Park). On July 27, the city of New Rochelle, where the Riveras used to live, will celebrate “Mariano Rivera Day” by throwing a parade and giving its honoree a key to the city.
“I just thank the Lord for everything, because I know, as a fact, that without him, I couldn’t accomplish none of that stuff,” Rivera said. “Therefore, I’m OK with that. I’ll just leave it like that. I don’t want to try to figure out things.”
TO GRASP Rivera’s mindset at this zenith, it’s essential to point out that, while he finds himself contemplating the steps and breaks that got him here, he doesn’t question how he got here. He first became spiritual once he and Clara, who grew up a few houses apart, started seeing each other, and he wrote he was in his early 30s when God became “the center of my life.”
“As a Christian, the Lord orchestrates your life and puts it on a path,” Rivera said. “He guided me to all these things. … He put me in baseball.”
In his book, Rivera wrote of a Pacific Ocean fishing expedition gone wrong that sank his father’s boat and imperiled the lives of everyone on board.
“I know that the Lord took us away from that because he has a purpose with me. Sure enough, now we see the purpose,” Rivera said. “Now we see he’s giving me a platform that no man can give me. And that’s only the Lord alone.”
Since retiring, Rivera has kept a toe dipped in baseball, making occasional appearances at Yankee Stadium and spring training, and he has opened a car dealership in his name, Rivera Toyota of Mt. Kisco. He has directed the bulk of his energy, though, to spiritual ventures. He restored the Refuge of Hope Church in New Rochelle, with Clara serving as senior pastor. Next up is a youth learning center nearby.
“I am buying the land,” Rivera said, “and the Lord has opened doors now in an amazing way and he gave me the idea. I was praying, and the Lord put it in my heart to do it this way: ‘Go to your contacts.’ And my contacts, you guys have got a pen and a paper, TV and a lens. Those contacts, they can promote.”
Items like T-shirts and hoodies with Rivera’s 42, designed to raise more funds for the learning center, will be coming soon, he said.
Sooner will be Rivera’s big baseball moment. He has been working on his induction speech for months.
“I want to make sure that I don’t miss anybody,” he said. “It’s good. I don’t think it will be too long.
“I guarantee you I’ll be the last. So maybe they have to give me a little more time, since I’ve been listening to everybody.”
He enjoyed telling the joke, though don’t be surprised if he does take a little more time on that stage. To spread his message. To express his gratitude. And to bottle some of those “too much” thoughts, the range of emotions surrounding his one-in-a-million path from Puerto Caimito to upstate New York, and deliver them with passion to close out another winning day.