JOE TORRE 1996-2007
Showalter’s pinstriped run ended with a heartbreaking, five-game American League Division Series loss to Lou Piniella’s Mariners. The rookie Rivera did everything he could to save Showalter’s job that week, throwing 5¹/3 scoreless innings while striking out eight and walking one.
That week, too, Rivera captured the attention of his next manager.
“I didn’t really first catch notice of him until the playoffs against Seattle,” Torre said. “That was pretty impressive.”
Nevertheless, when Torre surprisingly became the Yankees’ manager in 1996, he didn’t immediately propel Rivera to a prominent role. He and his pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, prioritizing experience, tabbed veteran Bob Wickman as the primary setup man to Wetteland. By the end of April, however, with Wickman struggling and Rivera dominating, the Yankees realized Rivera could give them two or even three dominant innings every few days.
“In that role, it gave me only six innings to screw the game up,” Torre joked. “He was a godsend.”
Wickman didn’t even make it through the season, getting dealt to Milwaukee in August. Then the Yankees let Wetteland go to Texas via free agency, promoting Rivera to the closer role for 1997 … and not everyone remembers that he
struggled some in his first go at patrolling the ninth inning. Rivera blew nine of 52 save opportunities in ’97, a total he never topped in 16 more seasons on the job, and in his final appearance of the year, summoned to eliminate the Indians in AL Division Series Game 4 at Jacobs Field, he surrendered an eighth-inning, game-tying homer to Sandy Alomar Jr. The Yankees lost Games 4 and 5, their season ending in a blur.
“When we got back after that loss in Game 5, I grabbed him coming off the airport tarmac,” Torre recalled. “I told him, ‘We wouldn’t be in that situation if not for you.’ The next year in spring training, we had the same talk at Legends Field: ‘Just do what you do.’ ”
That worked. Rivera recorded the last out of the next three World Series, the Yankees capturing four of five championships.
A special committee voted Torre into the Hall in 2014, largely on the strength of his success as Yankees manager. Rivera becomes the first player from that pinstriped core to join him.
“When I went in there, I was counting the years on when I’d be able to embrace my guys,” said Torre, who noted his Hall classmate Bobby Cox enjoyed the good fortune of getting inducted with his Braves pitchers Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux. “Once you walk into that hotel, into the Hall, [realize] what those plaques are about, it’s a remarkable feeling.”