He’s all about finding a way to get better. It’s not one thing—it’s everything. He’s all in. He’s a team player and he understands what it takes to win. He not only leads by example, he leads with that nice, soft, very confident voice of his, that seems to be saying, “I know how to win, so you should listen to me.”
He doesn’t tell you what you have to do; he shares the information that works for him. Experience is the best teacher. He’ll tell you what he’s thinking. For him to do that shows he’s not holding anything back, and that’s the reason so many people around him are successful.
I enjoyed being around him every day. He was always willing to share information to help me get better. You’re trying to find ways to win, and he’ll help you with your preparation for the game by talking to you about how to get the hitters out so we can strand the [base] runners. He’s very aware of how his bullpen mates are feeling and relates well to us. It’s almost as if he had eyes in the back of his head. He knew how much you’d been throwing, and if you were tired, he’d suggest you take it easy that day during your [pre-game] throwing routine.
Mariano is confident, but I don’t think anybody in baseball ever gets comfortable, because if you do, somebody’s able to beat you. He’s always confident, always in control; he has unbelievable poise on and off the field. I remember one game in Detroit when he pitched three innings. Before the game, [manager] Joe Torre was walking around the clubhouse talking to us—he was always asking us questions, he was a great communicator—because Joe thought he might need to extend the bullpen a little bit that night [because the scheduled starting pitcher Aaron Small was coming back from a hamstring injury].
Mariano said, “I’m ready.”
He was always ready; he didn’t blink. You never saw Mariano sweat, he never lost confidence, and he never wavered. Nothing ever shocked him, and he was never surprised. During the outfield pre-game [warm-ups] and in the bullpen you had the feeling that something was going to happen that night. Sure enough, it was a tight game and Mariano went in and pitched three innings for the win.*
Mo Respect
Adam Warren
Warren was Rivera’s teammate in the bullpen in 2012 and 2013.
He pulls me aside every now and then, if I have a rough game, and gives me some advice [on] how to pitch, sometimes how to approach the mental aspect of the game. He has helped me pitch at this level by taking me under his wing a little bit and shown me the way. To be able to be teammates and talk and pick his brain is pretty amazing.
John Wetteland
Relief pitcher
Playing Career
Los Angeles Dodgers, Montreal Expos, New York Yankees, and Texas Rangers from 1989 to 2000
Career Statistics
48 wins, 45 losses, 330 saves, 2.98 earned run average, 765 innings, 616 hits, 252 walks, 804 strikeouts
Mo Cred
Wetteland was the Yankees’ closer in 1995 and 1996, and his four saves in the 1996 World Series earned him the series Most Valuable Player award.
THE 1996 TEAM was a very special team. We were a real close-knit group. We came to the park expecting to win every day, and went about our business in that fashion. I get reminded of 1996 a lot. It was obviously a highlight moment of my career just being involved with that club, being a part of that [World Series championship]. It’s hard to think about that team without thinking about every single person on that team, and how they contributed.*
I had two good set-up men going into that year in [Bob] Wickman and Jeff Nelson. Mo wasn’t a set-up man when he came into the pen. He was just a long guy, a spot starter. He was a kid, but he was a special kid. He grew into the role of set-up man. The other guys had been doing the job for years. You know how it works. You start pitching good, and you start getting better roles. It didn’t take long until Mo was setting up.
Usually a closer has one great set-up man, now I had three. Obviously he was a luxury. You look at the game for the last twenty years, and the evolution has been how to shorten the game from the back end. We made the game six innings. I think it was Tony La Russa who said: “It’s a six inning ball game when you play the Yankees.”
Obviously Mo made my job easier, and everybody else’s, too. That’s the thing about a bullpen, if we understand we’re a unit, and we’re handing the ball off to each other, it makes us all better. Now Mo imparts that [philosophy] to his pen.
I was with Mariano has long as I needed to be with Mariano, and he’ll tell you the same thing. The Yankees needed Mariano then, and when I became expendable, it was the perfect storm. It was a shrewd business move. That man was ready to step in, I could get a job somewhere else; everyone won. But I find it remarkable how he succeeded in his first year closing. Remember, you’re talking about a young kid who was rubbing elbows with veteran [bullpen] guys for about half a year and seeing how it’s done. We would play catch every day and work on things, but it’s still just half a year [before] he’s closing for the Yankees.*
When I departed after being the [World Series] MVP, that’s got to be a really tough spot for the next guy. I know that position of closing for the Yankees, it’s tough enough, and then you throw that on there, too. Once you saw Mariano come through that, those are the kinds of things that mark closers. To see him handle that kind of a situation in his career, the way he did, you knew he going to be just fine. Now, it’s twenty years later, and he’s achieved all those numbers, who could call that? But you knew he was going to be just fine. Mariano had a great arm. You knew he was going to be something special at the back end of ball games. I don’t think we set out thinking he would save 600 games. I saw him after he got his 600th save, and I hugged him, and I told him, “Now go out and get another 600.”
When I first saw him pitch, he was a starter, and he was hittable. He had a fastball, slider, and change-up, with good command, but there wasn’t a lot of separation [in the velocity between] the slider and the fastball. The fastball had explosiveness to it, but he really lacked a second pitch that was good enough to offset the fastball. So I saw him get hit around quite a bit. You can have a good major league career if you have command of three pitches, even two, if you have command of them. But you’re going to get hit a little bit. There needs to be a separator. And when the cutter arrived on the scene, it was the separator. Major league hitters will tell you, “I swear I was on that pitch, and the next thing I know, I’m holding talcum powder.”
If you look back, in retrospect, it becomes clear why we’re [talking about Mariano Rivera] so many years later. I’ve never seen anybody pay so much attention to detail when they’re young. I remember when he came into the bullpen in ’96 we had a good corps of [veteran] guys there. He was like a little kid, he never said a word, he just sat there, watching, and taking in everything he could. He sat there quietly, but he was listening to what was being said when we talked about hitters; nothing escaped him—nothing.
That’s absolutely what he was all about. I think that may have been the catalyst as to why he always seems to stay one step ahead of the game and the way hitters approach him. He knows there’s pitching involved, not just throwing, and he evolved to use different ammunition. He’s a very intelligent, wise man. He knew how to make some correct assessments along the way. So when you look back, from where he started, and the process of how Mariano Rivera was not a scared kid, but a wide-eyed kid, who becomes far and away the greatest closer that ever lived, you can kind of see it.
The thing that blows my mind is how his body holds up. We all take care of our body, but there are a special few that are blessed with the ability to keep going. That’s something that’s very special that I can’t explain. I love Mariano to death. There’s a lot of history there, a lot of great moments shared. Quite honestly, as I’m thinking about it, we spent time talking about baseball, but a lot of time talking about life, where we are as human beings, talking about the way things are. What I love most about Mo is he’s got such a humble spirit about him. That carries you a long
way as a closer. Things can bite you, so you need to stay on an even keel.
*In two seasons with the Yankees, Gordon was 14-8 with 6 saves and a 2.38 earned run average.
*Rivera did not pick “Enter Sandman” as his entrance song. The Yankee Stadium scoreboard production crew began playing the song in the summer of 1999, having witnessed in the previous year’s World Series how enthusiastically San Diego fans reacted to closer Trevor Hoffman entering games accompanied by AC/DC’s “Hells Bells.” Nathan’s entrance song is “Stand Up and Shout” by Steel Dragon, a fictional band from the Mark Wahlberg film Rock Star.
**Nathan has been selected to the American League All-Star team six times.
***Nathan’s Minnesota teams lost twice to Rivera’s Yankees in the postseason, in the American League Division Series in 2004 and 2009.
*Nathan notched his 300th career save by closing out a 5-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on April 8, 2013. The final out came on a controversial three-and-two curve ball that was called strike three by umpire Marty Foster, who later admitted the pitch was not a strike. Only five closers in baseball history have amassed 400 saves in their career: Mariano Rivera (652), Trevor Hoffman (601), Lee Smith (478), John Franco (424), and Billy Wagner (422).
*Neagle and the Yankees defeated the Royals, 7-3, at Kauffman Stadium, on September 7, 2000. Neagle had allowed only four hits and one run through eight innings, yet trailed 1-0. The Yankees’ offense exploded for seven runs in the top of the ninth, but the Royals staged a comeback of their own. The Yankees survived poor relief pitching and eventually needed Rivera to retire Carlos Beltran for the final out with the potential tying run on deck. It was Rivera’s 162nd career save.
*Trailing the Yankees two games to none in the best-of-five division series in 1995, the Mariners roared back to win three straight games to advance to the A.L. Championship Series. Inexplicably, Rivera pitched a total of just two innings in relief in the final three games.
*Rivera’s blown save on May 28, 2013 against the Mets at Citi Field was the first time in 1,072 career games that he’d blown a save without retiring a batter. Ironically, Rivera had thrown out the ceremonial first pitch, and then took the loss on his final pitch.
*Rivera made his final Yankee Stadium appearance in the team’s home finale, a 4-0 loss to Tampa Bay, on September 26, 2013. Rivera recorded two outs in the eighth inning and two outs in the ninth, but what will be remembered is the normally calm pitcher crying uncontrollably on the mound while embracing Pettitte and Jeter, who had been sent out by manager Girardi to make the pitching change to signal the end of Rivera’s career.
*Rivera pitched the ninth, tenth, and eleventh innings of an 11-6 win at Detroit, on May 30, 2006. It was the first time Rivera went three innings in a regular-season game since September 6, 1996—a span of nearly ten years.
*The Yankees defeated the Atlanta Braves in six games to win the 1996 World Series. The Yankees were champions for the first time since 1978, and the triumph started a run of four Yankees titles in five years.
*Wetteland saved each of the Yankees’ victories in the 1996 World Series, earning the Series Most Valuable Player honors. His seven postseason saves that year are also a record. With Rivera waiting in the wings, the Yankees chose not to offer Wetteland a new contract, and he signed as a free agent with the Texas Rangers in November 1996.
Section Six: Management
Mike Borzello
Borzello was the New York Yankees bullpen catcher from 1996 to 2007.
IN 1996, MARIANO became the set-up guy and John Wetteland, our closer, started talking to him every day. Wetteland knew Mariano would take over for him the following year. That’s something that got lost—how important Wetteland was to him. The closer doesn’t usually take the next closer under his wing. Wetteland did, and Mariano did [the same] with every reliever that came through.
Mariano became their mentor. He schooled the relievers one by one. He would sit with each one separately at times and do what Wetteland did for him to make sure they had a better chance at success. I always marveled at that dynamic. If someone had a tough outing, I saw him talk to them about how to let tough situations go. I always thought that was impressive. Wetteland triggered it, but Mo had the intelligence to absorb it and take it to another level with all the guys through the years.
So many guys get distracted about other things, especially off the field: money, their own personal achievements. I never saw that in Mo. He was always focused on the team, on what do you need me to do? In twelve years with him I never heard him mention anything about his contract, his number of saves, his earned run average, or any personal achievement.
I’d say: “We’ve got to get to 40 saves.”
He’d say: “How many do I have now?”
He really didn’t know.
I don’t think he ever threw a ball that bounced in my twelve years of catching him in the bullpen. He would pitch up and down and in and out, but never in the ground. It’s the most amazing thing. He wasn’t trying to strike you out. He was looking to get you out in one or two pitches by shattering your bat.
Mo Respect
Bruce Bochy
Bochy, manager of the National League All-Star team at the 2013 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Citi Field, on July 16, 2013, on the tribute to Rivera:
For him to get honored like that was a very special moment, which he richly deserves. It was moving. I can’t say I know him, but I’ve heard enough about him to know that he’s such a class person and a great ambassador to the game. Our players showed their respect and appreciation for all he’s accomplished in his career and the person that he is, so it was a really neat deal, a neat moment.
Brian Butterfield
Coach
Butterfield has been a major league coach with the New York Yankees, Arizona Diamondbacks, Toronto Blue Jays, and Boston Red Sox since 1994.
Mo Cred
Butterfield was Rivera’s manager with the Fort Lauderdale Yankees of the High A Florida State League in 1992.
I KNOW I GRADED him favorably—I think all of us did—because of the athleticism, the willingness to work, the type of individual [he is]. I’ve not seen anybody like this [in three decades] around the game. I think anybody would have a hard time projecting what he’s become. He’s the greatest of all time—and it isn’t even close.
He was a very athletic guy. He had a fastball right around 91, 92. Then he started getting stronger. He was a tremendous kid, very respectful, a hard worker, and one of the fastest kids in the organization. Always looking to get better. He was a wonderful kid to be around—soft-spoken, funny.*
He’s always had a very good delivery. You had a feeling he could repeat his pitches because good athlete and good delivery usually equals a guy who can repeat his pitches. He did not [have a breaking ball]. And he did not have the cutter. He might have had a little tiny one—just with a little cut off of his natural fastball—but I don’t know when he started developing The Cutter.
I was the first base coach for the Yankees [in 1995] when [Rivera was promoted] to the major leagues. As a coach, that was the first time I’d seen him [pitch] in a long time. The jump in velocity stood out—he was a bigger, stronger athlete. When we had him, he was just a young kid.
He’s a great role model for any of those young pitchers who come up: Just keep your eyes open and watch that guy.
Bill Evers
Evers was the minor league manager of the Yankees’ Triple-A Columbus Clippers.
Mo Cred
Evers, who has over 1,200 career victories as a minor league manager, was Rivera’s manager with the Columbus Clippers in 1995.
WITHOUT A DOUBT Mariano is one of the greatest players I’ve ever managed. I had the opportunity to manage Mariano, [Derek] Jeter, and [Jorge] Posada at Columbus in 1995, so I’m a very fortunate individual.*
At that time in his career Mariano was a starting pitcher and was trying to learn a breaking ball as well as a change-up. It was coming alon
g so-so, and the last game he pitched before he went to the big leagues, he threw a no-hitter, and after that game, the next day, I got to tell him he was going to the big leagues. That was exciting. Naturally, he was elated to be going to the big leagues. He couldn’t say enough good things about how happy he was, how all his hard work was paying off, and he was looking forward to the challenge.
I never thought he’d become a reliever. I thought he would be a good starting pitcher because his ability to locate the fastball was getting better and better throughout the course of his starts, and his secondary pitches were making progress. His fastball was very explosive to both sides of the plate. At that time, he didn’t have the precise command that he has now, but he was able to locate his fastball well to both sides of the plate.
The biggest reason why he hadn’t been to the big leagues sooner was his [lack of] velocity. When he was pitching for me his velocity had decreased. Instead of throwing 95 he’s throwing in the high 80s. It turns out that he wasn’t throwing the fastball as hard as we thought because the [radar] gun readings were wrong. Then [Yankees executive] Gene Michael came to town [with his own radar gun] and saw Mariano pitch the no-hitter. Michael saw what the gun readings were, and that convinced him [of Rivera’s velocity]. The next day Mariano was called to the big leagues. History may have been different had Michael not been there that day. Thank goodness for all concerned that he was there and Mariano got that opportunity because he is going to be a Hall of Famer.*
My best memory was being able to give him the ball every fifth day and watch him perform his craft and observe a man that went about his job in the right manner. Mariano was the kind of guy that goes out and does his work. He was a quiet role model. He didn’t say a whole lot, and he was very unassuming. He did most of his leading by example. You never had to worry about Mariano coming to the field and not doing his work, or not giving his maximum effort for that day. He is what any manager wants on his club; if you had twenty-five Mariano Riveras life would be very easy for the manager.
Facing Mariano Rivera Page 23