New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Jacobs: Perfect day of symmetry in Cooperstown
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Mike Mussina would start this day. Of course, he would. Mariano Rivera closed it perfectly.
Of course, he did.
On a hot Sunday afternoon in July, in this land of James Fennimore Cooper and baseball legend, Mussina stepped to the microphone, acknowledged his Hall of Fame plaque without club designation and talked of Little
League, snow cones and stale gum from packs of baseball cards. Mussina would leave a small town in central Pennsylvania for Stanford, the Orioles and ultimately the Yankees before returning to his hometown to coach high school basketball.
He is a cerebral sort, given to a monotone that has led to teasing from his former manager Joe Torre. Yet as measured as he was during his induction, Mussina would reach back and find those warm stories of his youth. As an 8yearold, he was so excited for his first organized practice over at the elementary school that he arrived on his bike far too early. No one was there. His mom was in the yard when Mike returned, wondering what happened. Upset, he tried to explain no one showed up. Mom knew better.
Four decades later, Mike Mussina, a smalltown kid who had bigleague dreams, thanked his mom for making him get back on his bike. Mussina turned to his brother Mark, his only sibling, and talked of whiffle ball, charting his performances, never missing his games and refusing to allow anyone sitting in his row in the stands to leave — for any reason — if Mike was pitching well. Mussina usually did.
Mussina won 270 major league games over 18 years, 147 with the Orioles, 123 with the Yankees, split allegiances that led to his plaque decision on is cap. He was a fivetime AllStar, seventime Gold Glove winner. He had memorable moments, none more memorable than Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS when he came out of the bullpen for the first time in his career to bail out Roger Clemens and go on to three scoreless
innings. In 2008, his final season at age 39, he became the oldest pitcher in major league history to be a firsttime, 20game winner. Yet Mussina also would become the “almost, not quite” guy, even coming within one pitch of a perfect game that Carl Everett broke it up in 2001.
“I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my time in baseball,” Mussina said. “I was never fortunate to win a Cy Young Award or be a World Series champion. I didn’t win 300 games or strike out 3,000 hitters. While my opportunities for those achievements are in the past, today I become a member of the Baseball
Hall of Fame.
“This time I made it.” Roy Halladay’s widow Brandy, who would donate a special baseball to the Hall of Fame, spoke movingly of her man who died in a private plane crash in 2017. Harold Baines, Edgar Martinez and Lee Smith spoke. Former Yankees centerfielder and accomplished jazz guitarist, Bernie Williams, who had played the national anthem, took the stage a second time. Williams was there to play “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and he would. First, however, had to riff
into a little “Enter Sandman.”
The Sandman entered. He did not exit quickly. The other five inductees referred carefully to their prepared speeches. Over 25 minutes, twice as long as the others, Rivera spoke extemporaneously.
“I chose that because sometimes you write words and they don’t sound right,” Rivera said. “When it comes from the heart, it comes right. I had my speech in case I needed it as a backup plan, but my intention was always to speak from the heart.”
So he did.
Rivera spoke of his faith and his family. He apologized to his children for baseball taking him away and, especially to Mariano Jr., whose birthday is Oct. 4. “Sorry,” he said, “I was on a mission.” Rivera, of course, was a fivetime World Series champion, with a mindnumbing 0.70 ERA in 141 postseason innings. October was his masterpiece.
He spoke of his love of the Yankees, his Yankees teammates and Yankees fans. How the late George Steinbrenner and his family have always been there for him. He talked about his special relationship with Torre, “Mr. T.” He talked of the honor of being a Yankee and how he did it with “dignity and pride.”
Rivera said he always felt as if 55,000 Yankee Stadium fans were there with him on every pitch.
“Without your support I could not do it,” Rivera said as thousands outside Clark Sports Center, many with Panamanian flags, cheered wildly.
He even thanked the fans for booing him when he didn’t get the job done.
“I deserved it,” Rivera said. “You guys came to seem me succeed.”
He spoke how he grew up in Panama with dreams of becoming a great sports star. “Not Babe Ruth or
Lou Gehrig, I wanted to be Pele,” Rivera said.
He wasn’t good enough at soccer. At 20, he got his chance, a tryout with the Yankees in Panama.
“I had no uniform,” Rivera said. “My spikes had a big hole at the big toe. I had no glove. I didn’t pitch. I threw.”
No, he didn’t become the next Pele. He settled for a major league record 652 saves and being the greatest closer in his history. He settled for becoming the first player unanimously voted into the Hall of Fame.
As he spoke from the heart, his story became more and more personal. He talked about his second year in the minors in North Carolina. He had no family, couldn’t speak English.
“I used to go to bed cry
ing, because I couldn’t communicate,” Rivera said. “No relationship with my teammates, manager and pitching coach.”
He learned English. Rivera would have more tears. This time it was 1995 when he was sent down to the minors with, yes, Derek Jeter. He looked out at the crowd, found Jeter and said, “Can you believe it?”
“We were almost literally crying,” Rivera said. “That only made us stronger.”
They’d be back. And next year Jeter will certainly become a first ball Hall of Famer.
The cut fastball, which he discovered in 1997, would be Rivera’s ticket to Cooperstown.
“I was playing catch with Ramiro Mendoza and now the ball is moving,” Rivera said. “We had won the World Series. Now, I’m the closer. I have all this responsibility and now I don’t know where the ball is going.”
He worked with the late pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre. They tried to cut down on the movement. Couldn’t do it.
“I said leave it like this, whatever’s going to happen is going to happen,” Rivera said. “I learned how to use that pitch. I used that pitch for 17 years and I used it well.”
He used it until Andy Pettitte and Jeter walked
out to the mound late in 2013 to take him out of for the last time. And here’s where it gets a little surreal.
Halladay, then with Toronto, had approached Rivera during the 2008 AllStar Game and asked him to teach him the cutter. Mo showed him.
“He did good,” Rivera said. “And my guys got mad at me.”
Rivera had to pay a fine in the Yankees’ kangaroo court for aiding such a talented opposing pitcher. Halladay did better than good with the cutter. He did great. So great he, too, was a firstballot Hall of Famer. Brandy Halladay would give a baseball with two fingers and a thumb traced over the seams to the Hall. The display says it is Rivera’s tracing. Mo said it wasn’t. Halladay himself traced it.
“The person who should be here today wasn’t,” Rivera said. “I was praying for her today.”
Brandy Halladay fought back tears to give an inspired induction speech.
Afterward, Mariano Rivera, a man of great faith, would smile. His prayers were answered. The start, the finish, yes, the symmetry of the day was perfect.