The Closer

by Mariano Rivera

  Every time I have gotten beat, it has made me better. Every time. I am not happy it happened, but I am happy it made me better. You only pay attention to the positive, not the negative.

  In the series finale, Clayton Kershaw holds us to two runs and four hits. Broxton comes in to close it. I wish him well, but not right now. He can find his way and change his mental approach after we leave town.

  Broxton strikes out Teixeira looking for one out. I’m thinking I may have been better off talking to him after the series. Then Alex singles. Cano doubles. Jorge singles. Granderson walks. Chad Huffman singles, and we score four times to tie the game at six, smacking Jonathan Broxton with as rough a blown save as he will have all year. We win it an inning later when Robby Cano hits a two-run homer off of George Sherrill in the tenth.

  Thanks for talking to Brox, Mr. T says the next time I see him. Whatever you said, he got a whole lot worse.

  We go into the All-Star break in first place, with a record of 56–32, and even though I am selected to the team for the eleventh time, I sit it out so I can rest a cranky knee and a tender oblique muscle. The game is played in Anaheim. The date is July 13, and it brings with it prayers and one more tearful goodbye: Mr. George Steinbrenner dies of a heart attack in a Tampa hospital, nine days after his eightieth birthday. It is two days after the passing of Bob Sheppard, the Yankees’ legendary public-address announcer. Death and illness are part of life, of course. Still, I am reeling. First Chico Heron passes, now Mr. George and the great Bob Sheppard, who graced us with his dignity and a voice that seemed to come straight from the Lord Himself.

  It’s hard to know why anything happens in life, or why we seem capable of terrorizing the Minnesota Twins on command. We sweep them again in the postseason this year, making it nine straight October victories against them, and twelve out of the last fourteen. We have eliminated them in division series play four times in eight years and always seem to do it by coming from behind, as we do in two of our three victories this year, including Game 1.

  I have more success against the Twins than against any other team. I feel it at the time, of course, but, looking back, and seeing that my career ERA in the Metrodome and Target Field is 1.09 and that, overall against the Twins, it is 1.24? I can’t explain it. I blew a save against them earlier this year at Yankee Stadium, allowing a grand slam to Jason Kubel, but otherwise have gone through them like a machete in a cornfield, especially in the playoffs; I have pitched sixteen and two-thirds innings against the Twins in the postseason and have given up no runs and only eight hits. The funny thing is that most of their big guns have hit me pretty well. Joe Mauer hits .286 against me. Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer hit .250 off of me. It’s not as if we have some master game plan against this club. I just always make the pitches I need to make and get the outs I need to get. You do that over a number of years, and you naturally develop confidence and positive associations when you are facing that team, fortifying you for the battle.

  And the battle, for me, is what makes me so passionate about the game, even after all these years. If it weren’t a battle, then it wouldn’t mean nearly so much to prevail. It is the prospect of the battle that makes you put in all the work, all the preparation, readying yourself to deliver your best, and that is all I am thinking of as I stare in at Jorge Posada’s glove, with Michael Young at the plate in Game 1 of the ALCS against the Texas Rangers in Arlington.

  There is one out in the bottom of the ninth, the tying run on second. We have climbed out of a massive hole, taking a 6–5 lead on a Robby Cano homer in the seventh and a five-run outburst in the eighth. These two innings have left Rangers president Nolan Ryan with his arms crossed and his face pained, looking as if he’d eaten a bad piece of steer. I come in for the ninth, and after a single and a bunt, here comes Young.

  He is a consummate pro and a tough out, a guy who never gives away an at-bat, and a career .320 hitter off of me. I don’t fear any hitter, but I have come to respect some more than others, and Michael Young has totally earned my respect. Jorge and I know it’s going to take work to get him—that I need to move the ball around and make sure I keep him guessing. So I start him out with a cutter up and a cutter in, and he fouls both of them off. I barely miss with two more cutters, one in, one away. I am positive the 1–2 pitch is a strike—it’s knee-high on the outside corner—but I don’t get the call. I take the ball back from Jorge. I’m not going to start staring down umpires or showing them up now.

  I have a pitch to make.

  I come in with a two-seamer that is in and higher than I want, probably the best pitch to hit of the at-bat; Young fouls it off. Now I come set again. Jorge sets up outside, and wants it up, and I throw a nasty cutter right to his glove.

  Young swings through it. Jorge points his glove at me. Getting him has everything to do with working both sides of the plate, and then hitting that last spot. Some outs are more gratifying than others; this is a very good out.

  One pitch later, I get Josh Hamilton in on the fists and he hits a slow bouncer to third for the final out, and a stirring comeback victory. But being three victories away from returning to the Series doesn’t mean anything, because we don’t come close to getting them. Almost every battle for the rest of the ALCS is won by the Rangers, who outpitch us, outhit us, and outplay us. They also outscore us, 38–19, winning in six games. Hamilton so terrorizes us with his four homers and seven RBIs in six games that we give him the Barry Bonds treatment and intentionally walk him three times in one game. He is named the ALCS Most Valuable Player, and deservedly so.

  Some things change. In the World Series, Hamilton’s bat goes cold and the Rangers lose in five games to the Giants.

  But some things don’t.

  I don’t watch.

  I turn forty-one a month after our season ends and am already well into my off-season routine, which includes lots of fitness work and little throwing, just enough playing catch to keep my arm loose. I make very few concessions to age. I eat properly and prepare properly and take care of my body, so I don’t think it’s a miracle that I am still doing what I am doing. I just try to listen to my body and give it what it needs.

  If there is one thing I have changed, though, it is trying to be more economical about everything. Who knows how many rocks I have left to throw? If I can get a batter out with one or two pitches, why throw three or four? I throw 928 pitches in 2010, over 60 innings. They are both the lowest totals of any full season of my career, and for a reason: There is no reason to stress yourself unnecessarily.

  In 2010, I threw seven innings in spring training and was ready to go. This year, I might not even throw that many. In my first game action since I pitched the ninth inning of Game 6 against the Rangers, I face three Twins in the middle of March and strike them all out. One of them is Jason Kubel, who hit that grand slam the last time he faced me. This time he is caught looking at a 92-mile-per-hour two-seam fastball. It doesn’t take me long to get loose for a game, and it doesn’t take me long to get ready for the season. I don’t aim to be low-maintenance; I aim to be no-maintenance. My mechanics are simple, and, as with any machine, the fewer moving parts the better. I think again about my message to Jonathan Broxton and to Alex. Why complicate things?

  On opening day of the 2011 season, at home, I keep up the economy and throw twelve pitches to three Detroit Tigers to save a victory for Joba. It’s an exhilarating way to start, but it still comes with mixed feelings, because my catcher is not Jorge Posada.

  Nothing against Russell Martin, our new catcher, but when you grow up with a guy, and go to Applebee’s in Columbus with a guy, you have a different sort of connection. Jorge has caught more of my pitches than any man alive. That he’s not doing it anymore is sad for him, I know, and it’s sad for me, too. Apart from being a tremendous player and teammate, this man is like a brother to me, the two of us connected by one ball, two gloves, and a shared mission: Get outs, win games, and go home.

  I go about my job with stoicism and ca
lculated calm; he goes about his with fire and passion that spew like lava from a volcano. We complement each other perfectly and communicate so effortlessly after all these years that we barely need to use words. I can tell a lot just from being with him.

  Jorge is thirty-nine, and in what will be the final season of a superb seventeen-year career. He is a full-time designated hitter now, and he’s having a difficult time adjusting to being a hitter and nothing else, to the point that he’s not hitting nearly the way he usually does. His frustration reaches a breaking point during a weekend in Boston. Joe makes out his lineup and puts Jorge in the nine hole. An hour before the game, Jorge, in a fit of anger, pulls himself out of the lineup. Things only get worse when Brian Cashman goes on national television and details the reason for the late scratch.

  Jorge and I have a long talk that night. His emotions run hot, sure, but Jorge is a man who can take an honest look at himself and make amends if he needs to.

  I tell him, I know you feel disrespected, but this is not you—a guy who refuses to play. Sure, it hurts, but you need to make this right and do right by the team, because we need you and we need your bat.

  You are right, he says. It was just the last straw, but you are right.

  Jorge apologizes to Joe and Cashman and gets back to playing ball, and he shows what he is about on the most memorable day of the season, standing at home plate in the third inning of a game at Yankee Stadium against the Rays. It is July 9, a Saturday, and Derek Jeter has just belted a home run off of David Price for his 3,000th big league hit, another staggering achievement in a career that has been full of them. Jorge is the first to greet Derek, and he wraps him up in a massive bear hug, and I am next. Derek is on his way to a 5-for-5 day as we win, 5–4, and even for someone who supposedly doesn’t care about milestones, I am filled with joy at this whole experience, seeing a guy Jorge and I have played with for almost twenty years get to a place that even players such as Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle never got to.

  Jorge is there again just over two months later, this time to give the hug to me, on the day that I pass Trevor Hoffman and become baseball’s all-time saves leader with my 602nd career save. Martin is behind the plate for the occasion, and the Twins are the opponent, and when I catch Chris Parmelee looking at a cutter on the outside corner, umpire John Hirschbeck comes up with his right arm and Jorge comes out of the dugout, already celebrating before “New York, New York” starts up, letting me know how happy he is for me, and what it means to him to be my friend. He and Derek push me out to the mound to soak up all the adulation from the crowd. He doesn’t want me going anywhere until I am properly feted, and not long after, Derek and I have a chance to celebrate Jorge, when he knocks in the go-ahead run in the victory that clinches another AL East title.

  We do not defend our World Series title or even come close. We outhit and outpitch the Tigers in five games in the division series but fall in the fifth game at Yankee Stadium, 3–2. We get ten hits, but very few of them when we need it—the story of the series.

  But the other story of our series is our leading hitter, who hits .429 and has an on-base percentage of .579, reaching base on ten of his eighteen trips. His name is Jorge Posada, and I am proud that he is my catcher, teammate, and friend.

  20

  Wounded Knee

  THE OUTFIELD HAS ALWAYS been my favorite playpen. It’s a place where you can roam free, chasing fly balls, trying to outrun them before they hit the ground, defeating gravity. It’s where I learned to love the game. If you ask me, there isn’t a better feeling in baseball than catching a fly ball on the dead run.

  Even when the Yankees signed me as a pitcher, I still was a closet center fielder, harboring private fantasies of being an everyday player. In my heart, I knew I was going to make it as a pitcher or not at all, but I kept my little dream alive.

  The next best thing to being an outfielder is playing there in batting practice. Or shagging, as it is known in baseball slang. A lot of pitchers shag, though for many of them it’s more of a social event than an athletic one. They hang out and talk, and if a fly ball happens to be in the neighborhood, they grab it. That’s not how it is for me. I am out there to catch every fly ball I can. I am out there to run hard. Loops around the warning track, running sprints from foul line to foul line, doesn’t do it for me. I want to run and sweat and get dirty. If batting practice is canceled because of rain or because it’s a day game after a night game, I am the most bummed-out guy in the ballpark.

  A month into the 2012 season, we leave New York for Kansas City to start a four-game series with the Royals. The date is May 3, our twenty-fifth game of the season. It is a Thursday. We get in late, so I sleep in and spend the day around the hotel, watching a little bit of the Animal Planet channel before going out to P. F. Chang’s for lunch. I eat by myself. I get to the park about four o’clock. I haven’t pitched since Monday, when I saved a game for Hiroki Kuroda against the Orioles. I don’t like to go so long without pitching; I’m hoping I get in the game tonight.

  Before I head out to shag, I go over and greet my newest teammate, Jayson Nix, a utility guy who has just been called up from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to replace Eric Chavez, who suffered a concussion. Joe puts Nix right in the lineup, batting ninth and playing left field.

  I change quickly and head out to the field. It is a beautiful spring night. I haven’t made any official announcement, but I am almost certain this is going to be my last season, and that makes me want to savor everything, every day, every pregame fly ball, even more.

  I am standing in center field of Kauffman Stadium, wearing a navy blue Yankee Windbreaker and gray running shoes—my shagging uniform. It’s almost always windy in Kansas City, and today is no exception. Not far away are our bullpen coach, Mike Harkey, and David Robertson, my bullpen buddy.

  Hark is a strapping man with a strapping son, Cory, who is a tight end for the St. Louis Rams. Hark is a good soul, a guy who helped launch my career, a fact I remind him of often. On the day I won my first major league game in Oakland, the losing pitcher was Big Mike Harkey, a former No. 1 draft choice of the Chicago Cubs who was taken fourth overall in 1987, just three picks after Ken Griffey Jr. My catcher that day was Jim Leyritz and my first baseman was Don Mattingly, and my shortstop, of course, was Robert Eenhoorn, a Dutchman. We raked Hark for seven hits and four runs, and I was the beneficiary.

  Thanks for throwing all those cookies, Hark, I tell him.

  No problem. Happy to help, he replies.

  Hark is the perfect man to have in charge of a bullpen. He believes in keeping things loose and keeping guys relaxed, because he knows that when the time comes at the end of the game it’s often not relaxed at all. He once said that what he was going to miss most about me was the element of calm I brought to the pen. I do bring calm, but I also bring mischief. After I spend the first five-plus innings of games in the clubhouse, I typically arrive in the pen in the middle or end of the sixth. I fist-bump everybody and then start in, usually with my gum. It’s amazing how a bunch of grown men turn into a pack of adolescents when you throw them into a bullpen. I am at the head of the pack. The command I have with my cutter is nothing compared with what I can do with gum. An earlobe from ten feet away? I nail it almost every time. Either ear. When they are onto my gum heater, I change things up and stick the gum on somebody—Hark, ideally. On the seat of his pants, his back—there are plenty of good spots on Hark’s big body. My favorite is his jacket pocket, so when he jams his hand in there it gets good and gooey.

  You got me again, he tells me.

  You’re easy, I reply.

  Batting practice is more than halfway finished when Jayson Nix, the new guy, gets into the cage. He swings and hits a long line drive toward the wall in left center and I am off, turning to the right, running hard, no mischief in mind now, only the ball, and getting it in my glove. Nix has tagged this ball, and it’s knuckling in the wind, but I am pretty sure I can catch up to it. I keep running on a diago
nal line toward left center, eyes fixed on the ball the whole time. As I near the warning track, I notice the ball is drifting a bit back toward center. The KC wind is playing tricks again. The ball is on its descent now. I am almost there, about to make maybe my best catch of the BP session. I feel the crunch of the track beneath my foot as I turn back slightly toward my left.

  And before I take another step, a shot of pain blasts through my right knee.

  It feels as if it’s ripped out of whatever is holding it in place, wobbling in and out. It’s the most pain I have ever felt. The ball bounces onto the track. My momentum takes me on a hop-step into the wall before I crumple in a heap in the dirt.

  I try to scream, but no sound comes out. My teeth are clenched. Hark and David see my teeth and think I am laughing—just goofing around and pretending to be hurt. I am not pretending. My face is in the dirt and my knee is throbbing. I don’t know what happened, but I do know it’s not good. I can feel my knee moving around. You know me. I pray all the time. At home, behind the wheel of the car, behind the mound. I am not praying now. The pain is too fierce. I keep rubbing my knee, hoping that somehow takes the edge off of it.

  In a second or two Hark and David and Rafael Soriano, who is also right there, realize that this is for real. Hark whistles to Joe Girardi and waves for him to come out.

  Joe runs out to me and so does our assistant trainer, Mark Littlefield. Batting practice stops. I keep writhing.

  Did you hear a pop? somebody asks.

  No.

  No sound at all?

  No.