The Closer
Page 10
I know there are people who may have huge doubts about this; my name has been whispered in this context because of my dramatic velocity increase in 1995. Believe me, I understand the cynicism, especially after so many star athletes, from Ben Johnson to Lance Armstrong to Mark McGwire, have turned out to be chemically enhanced—all of them after denying everything up and down. All I can tell you is the truth as it relates to me—I have never cheated, and never would cheat, because I love and respect the game too much for that.
Look at all the years of terrible publicity and disgrace these things have brought. When the issue gets all the way to the United States Congress, and you have players bobbing and weaving or pretending they don’t speak English, well, that’s pretty bad.
If I could erase one thing from recent baseball history, it would be performance-enhancing drugs. I’d do whatever I could to make sure everybody played the right way—played honestly. I understand that there are players who are desperate to make it and feel as though getting some chemical help is the only thing that can get them there. I get that people want to fulfill their dreams, but do it the right way. If you have the ability to be a big league ballplayer, great. If you don’t have the ability, and you’ve done all you can to get the most out of yourself, don’t turn around and do something that hurts the game.
When it comes down to it, we all make choices. Steroids are there on the streets. They are there right now. You can go get them and have the stuff in your bloodstream before you finish this chapter, if that is your choice. Nobody is putting a gun to your head to do this. You know where it will take you. You will bulk up and get more bat speed and hit the ball harder, farther. If you are a pitcher, you are going to add some muscle to your fastball.
You also know that even if your choice never becomes public, it’s something you have with you forever, no matter how much you deny it, or how good your counsel is, or how brilliant your excuses are. And the strong odds are that somehow, some way, you are going to get caught. Maybe not this year, maybe not even next year, but eventually it’s going to happen.
And when it does, your name will be barro—mud. You will be on the front pages and the sports pages and get more time on SportsCenter than the anchormen. Reporters will follow you and ask for comments from your manager and teammates. People will rip you and your kids will be teased and humiliated, and it will be a lio enorme—a huge mess.
Knowing all this, if you still go ahead and take performance-enhancing drugs, you know what I think? I think you have problems. I think you have big problems. I think you are in complete denial, or reckless, or so sure that you are untouchable because you are a rich, famous ballplayer that your troubles probably are just beginning.
Taking PEDs is cheating, plain and simple. It robs the game of integrity and legitimacy. If you get caught, you have to pay up. You should accept your punishment and shut up. You should be fully accountable and not hide behind your agent and some slick statement in which you offer some vague apology and don’t even say what you are apologizing for.
And if you are my teammate and you turn out to be a drug user? I am not going to coddle you or look the other way, I promise you. But I am also not going to abandon you. I will be there for you when you need it the most. I may believe you cheated and made a bad mistake, but I am not going to bail on you. If a brother or sister messes up, are you going to turn your back on them? I look at my teammates as family. So as much as I may abhor the behavior, I’m not going to rebuke them, as if I am some high moral authority. In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7:1–5, Jesus says:
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
I look at it very simply: We are all human, and we all make mistakes. Some worse than others, some far harder to forgive. But who am I to judge?
When you spend 152 consecutive days in first place, it usually means there’s not a red-hot pennant race going on. But you still have to take care of business every single day. As I approach my thirtieth birthday, I understand more than ever that preparing properly is everything.
I am a person who likes order and finds comfort in routine. Never is this more true than on game days. After I shag flies and batting practice is done, I grab a little something to eat, usually chicken or pasta, though I can’t lie… every now and again we order in from Popeyes. (An amusing image, I know—a delivery kid showing up with fried chicken at the Yankee Stadium security gate saying, I have an order for Rivera…) Once nourished, I am in the hot tub before the first inning starts, usually around 6:50 p.m., if we are playing at night. I submerge myself up to the neck and get my body good and loose. After fifteen minutes or so, I towel off and go to a massage room, where I do some stretching and have the massage therapist work on my legs and anywhere there might be tightness, a process that takes about thirty minutes. Then I get dressed (very methodically) and go to the trainer’s room, typically at the start of the fourth inning, and Gene Monahan begins by stretching my arm and legs some more. Then, depending on how I feel, he might put steam heat on my shoulder and rub my arm down with some hot stuff. All the while, I am paying close attention to the game on TV. I am studying the opposing hitters’ at-bats, looking for tendencies or possible weaknesses.
This time with Geno is probably my favorite part of the day, outside of being on the mound. It’s measured, purposeful. It is unhurried. I am in touch with my body. I am in touch with Geno. We talk about our families and our days and what’s going on in the world. We are honest and connected. It brings closure to my preparation. By the time I leave his training table, I can almost feel my adrenaline starting to surge. I head for the bullpen in the middle or the end of the sixth, and I get ready to compete.
On a Sunday in early August at the Stadium, I stick to the routine religiously, throw a scoreless inning against the Royals for my thirtieth save, and lower my ERA to 1.25. It raises our record to 84–29, and by the time our nine-game winning streak is over, we are 89–29.
We get there by taking care of business, and being prepared.
With the way we’ve dominated all year, we’re obviously huge favorites to win it all, a status that can bring its own pressure. The Rangers are our first-round opponent, and their loaded lineup scores one run in three games. Juan Gonzalez, who almost beat us by himself two years earlier, hits .084. Will Clark and Rusty Greer both hit .091, and Pudge Rodriguez hits .100. John Wetteland, my former mentor, only gets in one game. I pitch in all three games, save two, and give up one hit, and now it’s on to a rematch with the Indians.
After we take the opener behind David Wells, the Indians win two straight, and now we’re looking at the biggest game of our season. A loss and we’re in a 3–1 hole, staring down an elimination game in Jacobs Field. Orlando Hernandez (El Duque), making his first postseason start, is brilliant, throwing three-hit ball over seven innings in a 4–0 victory to tie the series at two games apiece.
In Game 5, Wells is superb for the second time in the series, striking out eleven and pitching into the eighth. I come on with one out and a 5–3 lead, and the tying runs on board. So here I am again in an eighth inning at Jacobs Field, in Year 1 A.A. (After Alomar). At the plate is the Indians’ left fielder, switch-hitter Mark Whiten, who had been on our side in this series the year before. Hard Hittin’ is what Whiten likes to be called. He’s a guy with a lot of power. It’s the biggest at-bat of the game, if not the series. The count goes to 2–2, and all I’m focused on is finishing the pitch well, coming in hard on him with a cut fastball. From the set, I bring a hard cutter that does just what I want, busting him on the hands. Whiten hits a weak grounder to second that turns into a double play to end the threat.
An inning later, I close it up with two quick outs on Jim Thome and Brian Giles, then strike out Enrique Wilson to put us one game away from the World Series.
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br /> David Cone, a twenty-game winner, starts well in Game 6, and Scott Brosius clobbers a three-run homer and we jump to a 6–0 lead. A party atmosphere is building in the Stadium, but Thome hits a grand slam and the Indians get within one, and it’s only because Mendoza, the guy who won’t play catch with me, gives us three brilliant innings of relief, and Derek hits a two-run triple, that we add some breathing room.
I come in for the ninth with an 8–5 lead. Nine pitches later, I grab Omar Vizquel’s comebacker and toss to Tino and we’re heading back to the Series. The guys mob me, and the joy I feel is deep. I am not big on redemption. It’s not as if I go out there consciously thinking I have to make up for the Alomar home run. All I want to do is throw good pitches and get outs.
I am convinced that being fully committed to the moment, without any worries about the past or projections into the future, is the best attribute a closer can have. You wonder why the shelf life of so many short relievers is, well, so short? Why guys can be unhittable for a year or two and then disappear? It’s because it takes a ton of concentration, and self-belief, to stay in the moment this way and not let the highs and lows mess with your psyche. The Lord has given me a strong arm but an even stronger mind. It is the key to everything, allowing me to not succumb to doubt or weakness when I fail. Twelve months After Alomar, I pitch in four of the five games against the Indians, and give up no hits in five and two-thirds innings. I strike out five. I have an ERA of 0.00. In nine innings across two playoff series, I have given up one single.
I am ready for the San Diego Padres, and the World Series, and ready for an interesting family subplot, too. My cousin and former teammate Ruben Rivera is now a Padre. Ruben is four years younger than me, a strong, fast, power-hitting center fielder, a player with the sort of physique and skills that make scouts feel faint. A Panamanian Mickey Mantle? More than a few baseball people think he has that kind of ability. In 1995, he is not just one of the hottest Yankee prospects in years; he is one of the top prospects in all of baseball. He makes some nice contributions with his bat and glove when the Yankees call him up in 1996, a year after me, and then it all begins to unravel.
You can be an All-Star for a long time. You have that in you, I used to tell Ruben. You just need to focus more and decide if this is what you really want.
It is what I want, Ruben would reply. I work hard.
I know you work hard, but there’s more to it than that. You also have to take care of yourself. You have to make good decisions. You have to realize you are only going to get one chance at this.
Ruben is one of those young guys who just seem to be a little too taken with the fame and the adulation that come with being a gifted big league player. He parties a little too much, stays out too late, never quite shows the patience he needs to let his talent take hold. He wants to be a star yesterday. He wants to swing at every pitch, whether it’s a strike or not. He wants it all, now, and when it doesn’t happen on his timetable, he gets frustrated. As the years pass, the frustration only grows. Ruben would wind up moving ten times in his big league career (he signed with the Yankees three different times). He hit 23 homers and stole 18 bases as a full-time player for the Padres in 1999. He also batted just .195 and struck out 143 times. I always wanted him to find a stable situation in the big leagues so that he could relax and let his gifts shine, but the stability never really happened for him until he got to Mexico, where he has played for the last seven years and, at the age of forty, is still one of the league’s top sluggers.
I want all the best for Ruben as the Series starts, but only after we win four games.
David Wells gets the ball to start a third straight postseason series for us, but this time is outpitched by Padres ace Kevin Brown, who takes a 5–2 lead into the bottom of the seventh. When Brown gives up a hit and a walk to start the eighth, Bruce Bochy, the Padres’ manager, calls for reliever Donne Wall, who immediately gives up a three-run homer to Chuck Knoblauch. Soon Wall leaves and Mark Langston arrives, and before the inning is over, Tino hits a grand slam and we have a seven-run inning. This is how it has gone all year. Production comes from everywhere. We have a No. 9 hitter, Scott Brosius, with 19 homers and 98 RBIs. We have Jorge Posada, a switch-hitting catcher in his first full year, hitting 17 homers and knocking in 63 runs, also at the bottom of the order. We have no 30–home run guys, but we do have eight guys who hit 17 or more, and five guys who drive in over 80 runs. The balance is incredible.
I come on in the eighth and get a four-out save, and the Padres’ problems deepen when we score seven more times in the first three innings of Game 2. With our Cuban rookie, Orlando Hernandez, on the mound, that is a massive deficit to overcome, and we’re halfway home after a 9–3 victory.
Our confidence is so unshakeable at this point that even when Sterling Hitchcock, the former Yankee, shuts us down through six and takes a 3–0 lead into the seventh, I sit on a bullpen bench and think:
We have them just where we want them.
All season we’ve fought back. All season we’ve had different guys come through in the biggest moments. So I am not surprised when Brosius, who’s been crushing the ball the whole Series, belts a homer to lead off the seventh, or when Shane Spencer follows with a double. Hitchcock is done, we creep one run closer, and, one inning later, Brosius steps in against Trevor Hoffman, one of the best closers in the business, and sends another ball over the wall, this time with two men on.
Now we’re up, 5–3, and after a few hairy moments, I finish off a 5–4 victory by striking out Andy Sheets with the tying run at third. With a sweep one victory away, Andy outpitches Brown and throws seven and one-third superb innings, leaving with a 3–0 lead and two guys on. Jeff Nelson comes in and strikes out Vaughn, and then Mr. T calls for me. I run in from the pen, and am not thinking about dogpiles or Champagne showers or anything else. I am thinking:
Get an out.
Ken Caminiti singles to load the bases, and who should come up but Jim Leyritz. He seems to be following us around. Leyritz can crush anybody’s fastball if it’s not well located. On a 1–2 pitch, I throw a cutter, a little up and away. Leyritz swings. It is not the contact he is looking for, his short fly to center an easy play for Bernie, who grabs it with a basket catch.
My cousin leads off the ninth, and singles up the middle in the only at-bat he ever has against me, but he is not on first long. Carlos Hernandez, the catcher, hits into a 6-4-3 double play, and now I am looking in at Mark Sweeney, a left-handed pinch hitter. I pump in two fastballs, and then come with a cutter away that he bounces to Brosius, who throws across to Tino, and now the dogpile is all I am thinking of. Joe Girardi arrives first and hugs me as I raise my arms straight overhead, thanking the Lord. Soon I am engulfed by Brosius, World Series MVP, and everybody else. My postseason ends with six saves and 13.1 scoreless innings. It is the first time in my life I’ve gotten the last out of a season. It’s a feeling I could get used to.
9
Spirit and Summit
THIS IS NO MIDSUMMER night’s dream. It is real. The Holy Spirit is speaking to me. Not in a regular voice, as if Clara were talking to me in the kitchen. But it is definitely the Holy Spirit.
It’s a hot Friday night at Yankee Stadium in July of 1999, the Atlanta Braves are in town, and it is a strange game from the start. The pitching matchup is Greg Maddux vs. El Duque. Who would ever guess Maddux would give up nine hits and five runs, and Duque would give up eight hits and six runs—and they’d both be gone before the game was half over?
Derek, in the middle of the best year of his life, hits his fifteenth homer and knocks three hits, raising his average to .377. Ramiro Mendoza is sensational in relief and gets us to the ninth with three-plus innings of scoreless ball. I run in from the bullpen, accompanied by the guitar riffs of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” the new entrance song the Yankees have picked for me. I have no advance notice about it and honestly don’t pay the song much mind. Ever since we played the San Diego Padres in the ’98 World Seri
es and the Yankees noticed how San Diego fans got all fired up by Trevor Hoffman’s entrance song, “Hell’s Bells,” by AC/DC, they have been trying to find the right introduction for me. (I might’ve gone with “Onward Christian Soldiers,” but I don’t think that would’ve flown.) For a while they try Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle,” which the fans seem to like. Then one day a Stadium operations worker named Mike Luzzi cues up “Sandman,” and the fans go berserk. So the search is over. I am not consulted and don’t need to be. If the fans like it, let’s go with it.
I am done with my warm-ups, and am standing on the back of the mound, head bowed, ball in my right hand, about to say my customary prayer:
Lord, please keep me safe. Keep my teammates safe, and everybody safe. I pray that You will protect me and give me the strength I need. Amen.
I am concentrating deeply and can feel my heart opening up. Suddenly I feel the overpowering presence of the Holy Spirit. My English isn’t good enough to describe what this feels like. Neither is my Spanish. You just have this supercharged sense of the Spirit in your heart, pouring into your soul.
I am the One who has put you here, the Spirit says.
I stop. I turn around and look up at the fifty thousand people surrounding me. I know what I just heard, and know that I am the only one who heard it. The tone of the voice is joyful, but it is also admonishing. I am at a point in the season and in my career at which I feel very much in charge of what I am doing on the mound. I don’t express this outwardly, but I am so full of confidence and vigor that it’s as if I am the one calling all the shots. In this moment, the Lord has apparently decided that I’ve gotten a bit too big for my closer’s britches, and that I need to be reminded that He is the one who is all-powerful, not me.
As I stand on the Yankee Stadium mound before all these people, I am flooded with emotions. I am chastened and humbled, profoundly shaken by this sudden spiritual wake-up call.