Once dominating the mound for the New York Yankees in the crunchiest of crunch times for decades, the 13x All-Star, 5x World Champion relief pitcher Mariano Rivera isn’t just now one of the greats, he’s a hall of famer, perhaps the best title you can get in any major league sport.
For the first time ever, Rivera was the first player ever to be inducted with 100 percent of writers’ ballots; all 425 vote casters agreed on one thing. That’s very impressive, but for a great player and maybe even better person, this is a well deserving to nod to one of the greatest relief pitchers to ever grace an MLB field.
Am I the biggest baseball fan in the world? Absolutely not. The only time I watch MLB is if we somehow grab tickets to go see the Minnesota Twinkies-err, I mean Twins, or if its the postseason.
That’s where I’ve seen Rivera thrive.
He’s perhaps the best postseason player, winning the World Series MVP back in 1999 and the 2003 AL Championship Series MVP, while also holding records for lowest earned run average, with an ERA of 0.70 and most saves with 42. 42? How fitting, since that’s the jersey number Rivera graced for decades.
Mr. Sandman, congratulations on the unanimous selection to the Hall of Fame and playing the game with not only your vast skill set, but with humility.
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