‘One pitch’ lands Mo on the cover of SI
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As part of a Tom Verducci package on Mariano Rivera and his Cutter of Doom, Number 42 finds himself atop Sports Illustrated this week. Here’s what the press release from the sports weekly had to say:
This week’s October 5, 2009, issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, features Yankees’ closer Mariano Rivera with the billing One Man, One Pitch: The One and Only Mariano Rivera. As the gates swing open upon another MLB postseason, baseball will once again attempt to divine one of the game’s great mysteries: how a man, closing fast on 40 and armed with but a single pitch, continues to dominate in the clutch like no other player, 13 years and counting.
SI senior baseball writer Tom Verducci reveals that Rivera’s cutter—the defining pitch of his generation—was the result of a happy accident: “God touched Mariano Rivera one June afternoon in 1997, and Rivera shrugged. Just three months into his new role as the closer for a budding Yankees dynasty, Rivera was suddenly unable to throw his signature four-seam fastball straight, not even during his daily toss with pitcher Ramiro Mendoza. Every catch a struggle, Mendoza told Rivera to knock it off, to quit making the ball dip and dart. Rivera assured his friend that he wasn’t doing it intentionally. He was gripping the ball the same way he always had, releasing it the same way he always had. The wicked movement just … happened…. Rivera didn’t have an explanation, and though he says he ‘didn’t have any idea where the ball was going,’ his results did not suffer. He got the save in that game, then in the next three. Still, for a month, he worked with [bullpen catcher Mike] Borzello and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre to eliminate the cutting action. ‘We were trying to make the pitch stay straighter, [as it had] in ’95 and ’96,’ Rivera says, referring to his first two seasons in the big leagues, ‘but it didn’t work. Then I said, ‘I’m tired of working at this. Let’s let it happen.’ And since that day we didn’t try to straighten it out anymore.’ He smiles. ‘And the rest is history.’ ”
Rivera has become the best closer with the demeanor of a benevolent king; baseball royalty without the arrogance. As a result, he has engendered as much respect from opponents as he has from teammates. Says David Ortiz of the rival Red Sox: “I have respect for Mariano like I have for my father. Why? He’s just different. If you talk to him at an All-Star Game, it’s like talking to somebody who just got called up. To him, everybody else is good. I don’t get it. To him everybody else is the best. It’s unbelievable. And he is the greatest. You know what? Sometimes in those times when he struggles, like when I watch him on TV, I feel bad for him. I seriously do. Good people, you want to do well.”
Those are some might big words of praise from David Ortiz.
he will buck the cover jinx
mark my words
CC was on the cover this year in april or so, and how did that turn out for CC?
those were my first thoughts…
Joe Posnanski’s cover story on Zack Greinke sure doesn’t seem to have any ill effects.
Yeah, Mo is unbelievably humble.
Like in that interview – K-Rod, Papelbon, Hoffman, Soria, they are all better than me he said.
Crazy.
in that interview he said he never even drinks coffee when they asked him if he ever took steroids…lol
Funny how pappi is kissing ass here
Eh, I don;t think he’s kissing ass. Call Papi what you want but he seems like a pretty humble, jolly guy.
May i remind you that you are talking about a blatant cheater?!!?!?!?!? you sound like peter gammons
Taking performance enhancing drugs does not make you a bad person. Whether it was cheating or not is another debate.
taking performance enhancing drugs does make you a cheater and does show your lack of respect to your counter parts who actually play the game clean.
so yes it does make you a dishonest bad person
How do you feel about A-Rod?
a very dishonest bad person as well…but at least he came clean. something that pappi wasnt even decent enough to do
P-A-P-I
ugggghhh.
Me: raise your hand if you’ve ever cheated on a test or done something similarly dishonest to get an advantage in your life
Everyone: slowly raises hand
Never cheated on a test but virtually every woman I’ve slept with (spare the hookers, who, for some reason, I’ve always been very honest with) has been straight-up lied to. I told one that I invented a combo cheese grater/garlic press and made money selling it. She bought that. Good times. Again, I haven’t slept with many Fulbright scholars.
I am trying to wrap my head around the probable physical appearance of a woman who would be impressed enough by that accomplishment to put out.
Who cares if he took steroids? All he was doing was offering a the guy some praise. Let it go, man. Regardless of what you think about him, it was a nice gesture from Ortiz.
sorry buddy, i cant let such a thing go…
TASTE MY BOILING SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS!!!!!!
then you really need to get a life. Taking steroids does not make you a horrible person. I doubt you have never made a bad decision, a bad judgement call, or haven’t done something bad in your life.
In all seriousness, fans with your type of mentality make it impossible for this game to move on from the steroids talk. Ortiz gave Mariano Rivera high praise and all you can harp on is that he did steroids or whatever. let it go.
i like steroids. i’m starting to get really offended by all the steroid-bashing.
pete, theres not a day that passes in which i dont reflect on my HS and college years and wish i had taken steroids
Yeah I take steroids. I eat that shit for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: We shouldn’t frown upon steroids. In fact, we should not only allow athletes to take them, we should require them. As a paying customer, I deserve to see the greatest athletic achievements possible, regardless of “purity”. If science allows Brett Gardner to become Babe Ruth, I’m all for it. Hell, Edwar might not look like an anorexic 75-year old survivor of an industrial accident with the aid of steroids.
Also, every musician should use auto tune.
/Shawty
You strike me as a fan of Andy Kaufman. Is he your idol by any chance?
i hate auto-tuning. not because it’s “fake” or whatever. there’s a ton of studio engineering shit that I love (all of In Rainbows, for instance), but I just can’t stand the sound of most autotune shit. I remember when I first started hearing it places I thought it was a joke, but then people started actually liking it or something. fuckin weird
Pete: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Psfn6iOfS8
The players take the Yanks/Sox rivalry MUCH less seriously than the fans do. They’re all friends, besides maybe Puke and Joba, it’s not a big deal.
Most times on the Sports Illustrated Cover: Michael Jordan (56), Muhammad Ali (38), Tiger Woods (30).
The Jinx doesn’t affect gods. And Mo is one of them.
I’m surprised Mo even allowed them to use him as the cover. I’d think he has a say.
Either way, he’s got the best pitch in the game. Thank Mo he’s a Yankee.
Thats the first non-porn magazine I will be buying in years. Great shot.
Thats the first non-porn magazine I will be buying in years.
(wink)
“God touched Mariano Rivera one June afternoon in 1997, and Rivera shrugged.
That reminds me of a Rickey Henderson story…
It reminds me of ‘Atlas Shrugged’.
I usually just read this blog because it’s easily the best Yankee content on the net, but I wanted to jump in and share my admiration and respect for Mo. He’s been one of the most dominant baseball players ever and at least imho, he ranks up with the upper echelon of baseball royalty like Ruth, Gehrig, Musial, Williams, Cobb, Young, Aaron, Robinson, Hornsby, etc. He’s flat out awesome and I’m thankful he’s a Yankee!
Which leads into the famous question….
Who will be the heir to MO?
Is it
A) Phil Hughes
B) Joba Chamberlain
C) a free agent
D) somebody from within the organization(Mellancen..etc…)
M-E-L-A-N-C-O-N
whatever man…get over it.
Um, no.
Spell things correctly. It’s courteous. Take the constructive criticism with humility and let’s move on.
Cunstactiv crtitim wuz takn wit huumiliitee. but noy frum sumbdy hoo alwaze givs it!
…
HAHAHA, good one. I see what u did there with the misspellings and stuff.
Thanks for noticing pat
http://www.scalzi.com/athenaheadcrab.jpg
ummm ok…?…?
i dont really get that joke either
haha nice.
Some guy we probably haven’t even heard of yet. Who’s to say Mo can’t be the closer for another 3-4 years?
seriously. even if his performance dips, if there’s no viable replacement yet, i don’t see any reason not to keep him unless he doesn’t want to play, a la mussina. But we’d be fine w/ rivera being a 3.00 era guy. remember ‘07? it really won’t make a huge difference if our starters and lineup are good. That’s why i get really annoyed when people call him the most valuable player the last bunch of years or w/e. I’ll agree that he’s been the best, most dominant, and most consistent at his job, and i’ll agree that he’s a surefire, first ballot HOFer, but he’s a closer. His net effect on a season is like what maybe 2ish wins?
im a sabermetric supporter (offensively anyway, i largely ignore defensive metric stats) but when it comes to judging mo i think sabermetric stats undervalue him
regardless of the endless math u can do to try and put a win value on him, i think the yanks would be more than 2 wins worse without him
hes a HUGE piece of the team, and if we didnt have him this year i wouldnt be shocked if we were at 94-95 wins right now and in a dogfight for the division
i dunno. I’m not trying to undermine Mariano at all – I think he is as good as anybody at his craft. He executes his pitches as well and as consistently as anybody I’ve watched pitch, except maybe Moose, it’s just that I don’t think a reliever who isn’t even available until 2 outs in the 8th inning, can do all that much for his team. I think it’s hard to distinguish his somewhat pedestrian actual value from his way-off-the-charts awesomeness-at-what-he-does value.
Of course this is ignoring the very plausible effect he could have on the other pitchers on the team – I forget which interview it was but I remember him saying that he doesn’t actually throw just one pitch – a cutter on the hands is different from one diving down and in which is different from one that jumps in the back door, and I think he’s preached this to other members of the bullpen, because it really looks like, especially from hughes, something like fastball on the lower outside corner is part of their repertoire, rather than fastball being part, and corner being a place to try to throw it. If that makes any sense
this is a good point… i think he has more than just 2010 in him
if he wants to stay, that is
He’s been one of the most dominant baseball players ever and at least imho, he ranks up with the upper echelon of baseball royalty like Ruth, Gehrig, Musial, Williams, Cobb, Young, Aaron, Robinson, Hornsby, etc.
Agreed.
(He’s at the very, very bottom of that echelon, but yes. Agreed.)
you move him up the echelon if he keeps this up another five years?
and FU si for trying to jinx him.
madden tried to put him on the cover of NFL 2009 but NICK SWISHER made him retire instead. and to this day, madden is afraid of flying.
you move him up the echelon if he keeps this up another five years?
No.
I want that cover blown up as a poster to hang on my door.
Does SI sell covers as posters?
I want that cover blown up and hanging on the ceiling above my bed.
Can’t wait to grab this issue…
The thing about Mo, what makes him so great is that he’s not just a great baseball talent. He’s the same guy you’d want coaching or teaching your kids…
When you teach humility is a virtue, you point to a poster of Mo.
Or raising your kids.
MoDaddy Daycare.
Hey Ben in all your subway wisdom do you have any idea what they do with all the old advertisements they take down? Are they destroyed? Archived? Auctioned off? This SI cover reminds me of a series of Nike ads I saw in the underground right before the season started. They were huge photos of Mo,Jeter, Arod and the Old Stadium there must have been 20 or 30 of them because they lined the corridor between Times Square and Port Authority. I forgot about them until now, they were awesome.
How is Mo not on the cover of every issue of every sports magazine? The guy is a modern marvel. I’m so glad he’s on our side.
LOL at Mel trying to straighten out his fastball. What amazes me most about his cutter, is his ability to locate it. The movement is nice, but a lot of guys have great movement. The velocity used to be impressive, but plenty of guys throw harder. His ability to consistently pitch to the black, inside and out, up and down is remarkable.
mosanna in the highest!!
//tsjc’d
LOL at Mel trying to straighten out his fastball.
What would you expect from the guy that told Dwight Gooden in 1985 that he needed to throw his fastball less?
When his bender is nicknamed “Lord Charles” because “Uncle Charlie” isn’t good enough, well . . .
(Mostly agreed on the larger point. I’m not sure the Mets did Doc any favors, although the coke didn’t exactly help)
Cover curse?
I’m Happy for Mo.
I can honestley say I am quite lucky to witness Mo. He’s too good to be true and you know what, he is that true.
You thin Michael Jordan would ever say “hey I think Scottie Pippen, Magic Johnson and Bird and Kobe and LeBron were all better players than me”
Mo is just unbelievable.
At a poker table he might.
It’s been a privilege to witness the career of the greatest reliever of the modern era.
I plan on visiting Cooperstown for his induction ceremony, but I don’t plan on that being anytime soon, so here’s hoping he can keep it up for a few more years.
As I said when Mo signed his new three-year contract and many in the media thought the Yankees would be sorry because of Rivera’s age, I believed they were going to face the same situation again. How many more years to sign him once the three-year contract is up. This ride will come to an end, but I don’t expect his performance to “drop off a cliff” next year, which means another contract is coming if Mo wants it.
Can you guys imagine Mo dominating on the Red Sox for these past 13 years? The thought makes my eyes water.
It makes my eyes bleed.
What’s disturbing is he doesn’t know why his pitches “cut.” It just happened. And he spent days trying to eliminate it before just accepting it. So if it just started cutting, what happens if he just stops???????!!
That would mean God wants him to retire. Then Mo heads off into the sunset and eventually to Cooperstown and we all can tell our grandchildren that we saw the greatest reliever of all time ply his craft.
Is it okay if that made me tear up a little bit?