After Mariano Rivera was routed in his Major League Baseball debut, manager Buck Showalter offered an observation.
"Hopefully, Mariano will learn from it," Showalter said.
More than a decade later, Rivera's done OK. Four World Series championships, one World Series MVP honor, and he became the fourth major league pitcher to post 400 saves on Sunday. Pretty good for a guy who throws only one pitch.
PHOTO: AFP
"The best ever, no doubt it," Dennis Eckersley said on Monday.
High praise from the lone reliever to make it into the US Hall of Fame. See any similarities, Eckersley?
"No comparison!" he said. "I didn't have the stuff he did. Not at all. I've been blowing his horn for years. He's electric."
Put it this way: Put the New York Yankees' ace closer on the Atlanta Braves from the start of his career, and Atlanta is probably a dynasty rather than a playoffs disappointment.
Instead, Chipper Jones was reduced to chuckling in the dugout as he watched Rivera's cut fastball break three of Ryan Klesko's bats while finishing off a 1999 World Series sweep against Atlanta.
"He has the single best pitch ever in the game," Chicago White Sox slugger Jim Thome said. "A lot of guys, you can make some adjustments. But not with that cutter."
Said Eckersley: "I mean, those left-handed hitters know what's coming and he still eats them up. How does he do that?"
And while Metallica's Enter Sandman is Rivera's signature song, he has another trademark sound at Yankee Stadium: The cracking of bats.
Be it the Mariners in May or the Mets in October, Rivera sees each opponent as an opportunity.
"Every time I go out there, it's business," Rivera said.
The 36-year-old Panamanian has done it enough since becoming a full-time reliever in 1996 that his place at the US Hall of Fame is set.
Bruce Sutter is being enshrined this month, and like many other successful relievers, Sutter had to wait while Hall voters struggled to determine who belonged.
Lee Smith, who holds the career saves record with 478, has barely received 40 percent of the vote in his three elections. There's no guarantee that second-placed Trevor Hoffman, with 460 and counting, would breeze in if he sets the mark.
Rivera, though, is the very definition of a Hall of Fame closer.
"You don't even have to look up his numbers," said Hall voter Paul Hoynes of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. "You don't need to go to The Baseball Encyclopedia. We've all seen what he's done. You know it when you see it. This guy is a first-ballot Hall of Famer."
Of course, Rivera is not automatic. While he's posted a record 34 saves in the playoffs, he's blown three memorable chances.
The Boston Red Sox got him in Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series. Arizona's Luis Gonzalez nicked him in the ninth inning of Game 7 in the 2001 World Series. And Sandy Alomar Jr. tagged him in the 1997 playoffs.
That said, Yankees fans still love him. It's a no-brainer, in fact. Wouldn't trade him for anyone. Think anybody felt that way about Armando Benitez or Byung-Hyun Kim?
Then again, it wasn't easy for Rivera at the beginning.
Rivera made his big league debut in May 1995 as a spot starter for injured Jimmy Key and, after striking out his first two hitters, got hit hard. The California Angels tagged him for five runs in 3 1-3 innings of a 10-0 loss.
Rivera bounced around the rotation for the rest of that year, and Showalter opined that good minor league statistics don't necessarily translate into major league success. Yet following an impressive outing, Rivera showed that he believed in himself.
"There is no doubt in my mind," he said. "I know I can pitch here."
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite