Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 7:36 pm Eastern Time: The New York Yankees 42 year-old closer, Mariano Rivera, is doing what he has done over the entire course of his career. He’s in center field prior to the first game of a four game series against the Kansas City Royals, shagging balls during batting practice.
Jayson Nix, called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre just hours before the game to replace injured Eric Chavez on the roster, hits his last ball of batting practice before making his Yankee debut in left field. He drills a ball to the warning track in center field towards the waiting glove of Mariano Rivera. Rivera retreats back and leaps for the ball which is just out of his reach. As he lands, the baseball world (even Red Sox Nation) gasps at what they’ve just seen. Mariano Rivera goes down in a heap of pain, and immediately grabs for his right leg. Hours later, the diagnosis is a torn right ACL. Initial speculation is that the greatest closer of all-time’s career has come to an end playing center field of all things.
The Yankees would fall to the Royals on the night, 4-3, but that was hardly the focus. Reporters gather around a teary-eyed Rivera in the clubhouse to listen to what he has to say about the future of his career.
With each response, more and more tears come to the closer’s eyes. The imminent question on everyone’s mind is asked: “Do you think you’ll come back to pitch again?” The response: we’ll just say it didn’t sound very promising.
As a diehard Yankee fan, I am speechless at this point. I keep trying to tell myself this is all just a dream. I’ve been to countless Yankee games and have never seen the best closer of all-time throw a pitch in person. At this point, I’m thinking I’ll never get the chance to see the famous closer emerge from the Yankee bullpen with “Enter Sandman” by Metallica blaring through the stadium.
But just a day later, “Mo” had a realization. After not knowing if it was the end of the line just a night before, Rivera made up his mind.
“I’m coming back. Write it down in big letters. I’m not going out like this,” he told reporters.
It’s a sigh of relief for not only Yankee fans, but also baseball in general. Here’s one of the classiest players to play the game who falls victim to a freak injury in-season. That’s no way to go out. Rivera isn’t coming back just to get the big ceremony that he will obviously receive when he does call it quits. There’s a lot of game still left in him. Even after 18 years, nobody has figured out how to hit his cutter.
In the meantime, Rivera will need to be replaced at the end of games for the remainder of the season. The Yankees do have two options on their roster already in David Robertson and Rafael Soriano. Soriano has 90 career saves, with exactly half of those coming in 2010 with the Tampa Bay Rays, but Robertson seems the likely choice to replace the future Hall of Famer. In 13 innings on the young season, Robertson has yet to give up a run while yielding just eight hits and five walks to go along with his 23 strikeouts.
Robertson is considered the closer of the future for New York. Welcome to the future David Robertson. It’s your turn for the time being! Oh and you’ll have Rivera around to mentor you through it. I’d say you’re in pretty good hands.