Mariano Rivera moved the Yankee Stadium crowd not with his skills, but with his words on Sunday.
The Yanks did lose on Mariano day, but Rivera stood in the middle of the field and spoke beautifully to end a great ceremony giving Mo the respect he deserves for his impressive career.
His current and former teammates and managers all said the ceremony dedicated solely to Rivera's accomplishments was very contradictory to the way he holds himself. He was never one to boast and want attention, he just got the job done.
"Every single year, if anybody had a chance to admire what they'd done, he'd be one of those guys," Rivera's manager for 12 years, Joe Torre, said of Rivera on Sunday. "Because it wasn't time to stop doing."
According to CBS Sports the game was looking up early. Andy Pettitte was perfect through 4 2/3 inningsand still had a no-hitter by the sixth. Pettitte said that he thought about it but couldn't imagine going a full nine innings at his age (41).
"It was good to dream," he said.
USA Today reports that Mariano came into the game in the eighth inning to a booming crowd at Yankee stadium, and got the six outs he needed to get, breaking Buster Posey's bat in the process. If the Yankees had come back to tie it up in the ninth you know Mo would have been right back out there.
"I want to win the game," Rivera said. "And yes, I was coming [back] out if we tied the game. At that time, you don't think about it. ... I was ready for that. Unfortunately, it didn't happen."