RIVERA SEEKS
On long road back, he can expect little relief
KANSAS CITY — If a man can make walking with crutches look effortless, well, who else but Mariano Rivera? Here he was, practically gliding across the clubhouse on his new crutches, when he noticed everyone studying his every move.
“I didn't die, you know,” he said, feigning annoyance. “I’m going to bust out running in a minute.”
And that’s when you knew. It would be a few minutes before Rivera would announce his intention to return from soon-to-be-scheduled knee surgery and pitch again next season, but his mood had given him away.
The tears from Thursday night, tears he had never cried in public , were long gone, replaced by the Rivera of old. The smile was back.
At his locker, in fact, he joked frequently as he spoke for 15 minutes, said that all of his hints about retirement were really only a chess game he was playing with the media. “Who was winning?” someone asked. “It was a tie,” Rivera deadpanned. No, he wouldn’t admit to anything about previous hints of a retirement after this season. Actually, beneath the smiles and jokes on Friday, the Yankee closer was practically defiant in letting the world know he wouldn’t allow a tear of his ACL to determine his fate.
“I won't go down like this,” he said emphatically. “I can’t go down like this.”
And once again I was reminded never to underestimate the competitive fire that drives these guys, especially the great ones. And never to believe them when they talk about retirement.
I thought Rivera might be different. I thought the knee injury would convince him it was time to get on with life, raising his family and doing work for his church. I thought his pride, his determination to go out at the top of his game, would keep him from returning at 43 with a reconstructed knee.
What I didn't fully consider was that Rivera wouldn’t see it that way at all. He sees the tear as more of a speed bump than a roadblock, and can't imagine that it could compromise his brilliance, no matter his age.
“I won’t have any hesitation,” he said. “I’m a quick healer. I’ll do the work. No doubts. I’m going to do it one more time. It’s all how you think.”
Hey, you’d be crazy to doubt the guy. But surely it won’t be as easy as he made it sound on Friday. He has major surgery and a ton of work ahead of him, and even it all goes well, you would have to think the injury would take some type of toll, especially at such an advanced baseball age.
Even Joe Girardi, who said he believes Rivera can return to his old form, was hesitant to proclaim it being automatic. “He still has to get through the rehab,” said Girardi, “and then let’s see where he’s at.”
Then there is the matter of a contract. Rivera’s twoyear, $30 million pact is up after the season, and after the Derek Jeter negotiations two winters ago got ugly, you can’t assume that working out a new deal will be a simple matter.
Rivera laughed off any such notion Friday, chuckling as he said, “They’ll want the old goat.”
Yes, the Mo of old was back, his laughter brightening a clubhouse that had been such a somber place Thursday night.
“I’ve never seen a clubhouse so depressed,” Alex Rodriguez said. “It’s great to hear he’ll be back. I love the man. But it’s surprising. I thought it was over this year.
“I guess Mo is all about endings, though, and he wants to end it the right way.”
The Yankees were thrilled, all right, as the news spread through the clubhouse. Rivera said he planned to talk to the team before Friday night’s game, basically tell the players he thinks they will win without him, that he'll be around all season to offer encouragement.”
And while Rivera’s decision didn’t change the fact that his loss is a major blow to 2012, it made for more of a feel-good day than you would have thought possible, especially considering the scene Thursday night.
Rivera insisted that his tears of a night earlier weren’t for himself, but because he felt he was letting down his team. H “I always put myself last,” he said. is career has been proof of that sentiment, and yet surely he was pondering his own baseball mortality in those moments as well. He decided not to surrender to it, and now you just hope he can make a comeback at age 43 look as easy as he has the ninth inning all these years.