The Closer (7 page)

This is going to be an up-and-down process, he says. One day you may feel very good, and the next day you won’t. That is normal. It’s part of the process. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t progress every day. It takes time for the elbow to fully heal. Just be patient and keep doing your work, and it will be fine.

I am out until the spring of 1993, have a short stay back in the Gulf Coast League, and then join the rotation in Greensboro. I have rust to scrape off and don’t have the command I had before, and they naturally have me on a low pitch count, but in ten starts I have an ERA of just over two, and that’s nothing to be discouraged about. It is all coming together, in the halting way Dr. Jobe told me it would.

It’s all good for me in Greensboro, and there’s an added bonus, too—because I make a new friend. He’s our shortstop, maybe the only guy on the club who is skinnier than me. He was the Yankees’ top draft pick the year after they chose Brien Taylor. His name is Derek Jeter, of Kalamazoo, Michigan. I had met him before, in minor league camp, but this is the first time I get to play with him, and it is some show, because the kid is a year out of high school and all limbs, and you are never sure what he will do. I see him inside-out a ball to right-center field and wind up with a triple. I see him rip doubles down the line and hit in the clutch, and play shortstop like a colt in cleats, chasing down grounders and pop flies and making jump throws from the hole.

Of course, I also see him throw the ball halfway to Winston-Salem, over and over, as if he’s still trying to get used to being in a six-foot-three body. But I don’t worry about the errors at all. Derek makes fifty-six of them that year in Greensboro, and years later, there are stories about how the Yankees were concerned enough that they considered moving him to center field. If anybody had
asked me what I thought that year, I would’ve been happy to offer my opinion:

Don’t even think about moving Derek Jeter. He is going to be fine. He’s getting better every day. He wants to be great. You can see it in how hard he works, how passionately he plays. He’s quick and has pop in his bat and wants to learn and will do anything he has to do to win.

The only thing you need to do with Derek Jeter is leave him alone.

A month into the off-season, Clara and I are preparing to rejoice in the birth of our first child. It has not been an easy journey by any means. Midway through the year, Clara flew up from Panama to visit me. She was almost five months pregnant. The doctor warned her about staying away from chicken pox because of the impact it could have on the baby. It turned out her flight had almost as many kids with chicken pox as it had motion-discomfort bags.

Clara, predictably, came down with chicken pox shortly after. When she had her next ultrasound, the news was about as bad as it could get. The doctor told us our baby already had a pool of fluid in the back of his head and would most likely be born with a large growth in the area that could ultimately be fatal. He said that because Clara was already exposed to the disease there was nothing we could do.

We were devastated. We prayed constantly about it. Clara connected with a group of Christian Latina women and joined them on a retreat, where there were prayers, and more prayers, for our unborn baby.

Clara rested and took good care of herself. We stayed as positive as we could.

Maybe the doctor is wrong. Maybe the baby will be fine, I told her. You can’t lose hope.

The next time she visited the doctor, Clara was close to seven months pregnant. The ultrasound showed that the fluid had dissipated. The baby looked healthy.

I’m thrilled for you, but I have to say, I have no idea how this happened, the doctor said. I don’t think I have ever seen a case like this in all my years of practice.

On October 4, 1993, in Panama City, we welcomed Mariano Rivera Jr. into the world. Both mother and child came through it beautifully, and so did the father, who spent most of that day, and many days that followed, thanking the Lord.

T
HE BUS TRIP FROM
Rochester, New York, to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is seven hours. It seems even longer when you make the trip after getting swept four straight. We pull into Pawtucket late at night, a tired bunch of Columbus Clippers piling into a roadside Comfort Inn. It’s the middle of May 1995, and after spending 1994 in Single-A, Double-A, and Triple-A, I am off to a strong start with the Clippers, striking out eleven guys in five and two-thirds innings in my previous start.

We finally win a game to start the series against the PawSox. Tim Rumer gets the victory, and Derek Jeter, hitting .363, knocks a double to put us ahead to stay. Rain postpones the second game of the series. I don’t want to spend the whole day in my $45-per-night hotel, so I do what minor leaguers usually do when they are on the road: check out the local sights at the mall. The sights aren’t really local at all, since most malls look identical, a Gap here, a Foot Locker there, a food court in the middle. In Rhode Island, I just notice that
everybody
is wearing Boston Red Sox gear.

Late in the afternoon, I’m back in the room when the phone rings.

It is the Clippers’ manager, Bill Evers.

Mariano?

Yes. Hi, Bill. What’s up?

I have some good news and bad news for you. What do you want first?

The bad news, I guess, I reply.

Okay. The bad news is that you are no longer a pitcher for the Columbus Clippers.

What’s the good news?

The good news is that you are now a pitcher for the New York Yankees.

Excuse me?

You better pack. You are going to New York.

I hear his words the first time. They are not sinking in.

Are you serious? I say.

I couldn’t be more serious, Evers says. The Yankees want you to get down there as soon as you can. You need to reach out to the traveling secretary to make the arrangements.

Okay, thanks very much.

Don’t thank me. You earned this, he says.

I hang up the phone. For a long time, I have imagined what it might feel like to get the call to the big leagues. Now I know.

I stand up on the bed and start bouncing up and down, and keep on bouncing, a Panamanian jumping bean. My poor downstairs neighbor. But he won’t have to put up with this for long.

I am going to the big leagues.

Las Grandes Ligas.

When I finally stop bouncing, I get on my knees in the Comfort Inn and thank the Lord. Then I call Clara and my parents to share the news—I can barely remember a word I said—and tell them to let everybody in Puerto Caimito in on it: Pili is a New York Yankee.

I take a short flight down to New York and get a cab to the Stadium. We are playing a weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles. When I get to the players’ entrance at the Stadium, the guard stops me.

Can I help you?

I’m Mariano Rivera. I just got called up from Columbus.

Okay, we were expecting you.

Expecting me? Imagine that,
I think.

Having never been inside Yankee Stadium or any other big league ballpark, I can’t even imagine what it must look like. I catch a glimpse of the field before I walk down the stairs to the clubhouse. Even from a distance it looks too big and too beautiful to fathom. I meander through a corridor and arrive at the clubhouse. When I walk in, I look to the left and see a Rivera nameplate over a locker and a No. 42 uniform hanging inside. I wore 58 in spring training, so I guess that makes it official: This really is a promotion.

The whole weekend I am in a pinch-me state, like a cardboard cutout of every major league rookie. I have the time of my life in batting practice, shagging fly balls in what I’ve come to learn is the most famous outfield in all of baseball. I wish I could stay out there all night, but there is a game to play. The Orioles rally for four in the ninth against John Wetteland to win the opener, but we take the next game behind Melido Perez and then get a complete-game, four-hit shutout from Sterling Hitchcock to take the series before flying across the country to play the Angels in Anaheim. It is the start of a nine-game, three-city swing. The first game is Tuesday night.

The Yankees’ starting pitcher is me.

I am filling in for Jimmy Key, who has just gone on the disabled list.

I am more excited than nervous when I get to the ballpark that afternoon. I’ve had nine days of rest since my previous start in Rochester, so that should help my shoulder, which hasn’t felt great early in the season. No big deal. Just a little cranky. Gene Monahan, the trainer, gives me a good, thorough rubdown. Bill Connors, our pitching coach, goes over the Angels hitters with me, giving me
a brief overview of the best way to attack them. He gives me plenty to digest without giving me too much.

I take my time putting on my uniform. I start with the socks and then move on to the gray road pants and matching jersey. The uniform feels comforting and good. I run my hands over it when I am done dressing. I want to be sure it’s neat, just the way my school uniform used to be. I head out to the bullpen and look up at the three decks of the Big A as I go. The size and scope of everything is staggering. I am not so much anxious or in awe as I am incredibly alive. Everything slows down. Everything is heightened—the sounds, the smells, the colors. I am minutes away from throwing my first big league pitch.

I am so ready.

I am up against Chuck Finley, a big, hard-throwing left-hander. It’s a sparse crowd on a Tuesday night, and as Tony Phillips, the Angels’ leadoff man, settles into the box in a deep crouch, I am completely locked in on catcher Mike Stanley’s glove. It’s as if there is nothing else happening in the entire ballpark, the entire world—as if I am in a sixty-foot, six-inch tube, me on one end and Mike Stanley’s glove on the other.

All I need to do is hit that glove. This is how all-encompassing my focus is.

I take a breath.

Throw the best pitch you can, I tell myself.

Keep it simple.

I start into my no-windup motion, rocking back slightly, hands together near the waist before I come forward and push off the rubber with my right foot. I fire a fastball that runs down and away for a ball, but come back with two strikes on fastballs away and strike Phillips out with another fastball he is way late on. Jim Edmonds, the center fielder who is batting second, takes a fastball looking for out number two. Tim Salmon singles to deep short and
then Chili Davis, the cleanup hitter, swats a 1–0 pitch the other way for a double to left, and quickly I am in my first jam.

The hitter is J. T. Snow, the Angels’ first baseman, a lefty. I get ahead, 0–2, and then challenge him with a high heater that he lofts to center, where Bernie Williams has an easy play.

I pitch a scoreless second and get two outs to start the third before Salmon steps in again and drives a double to right center. I pitch carefully to Chili Davis, remembering his first at-bat, and wind up walking him, and then Snow hits a weak grounder that goes for an infield hit. Now the bases are loaded and Greg Myers, the catcher, is at the plate. I get ahead, 1–2, but he bloops a ball into left and two runs score. I get out with no further damage, and walk off needing no reminders that the walk to Davis is what complicated my life and helped put us in a two-run hole.

The trouble starts much sooner in the bottom of the fourth, with two singles to start the inning, bringing Edmonds up. I’ve struck him out twice, but he battled me the second time and seemed totally dialed in on my four-seam fastball. I fall behind, 2–1, and then leave a pitch over the plate, and he crushes it over the right-center-field fence. Now it’s 5–0, and on a night when Finley is making our hitters look like they’re swinging with straws, this is not good. One walk later my debut is history, with a terrible line (three and a third innings, eight hits, five runs, three walks, and five strikeouts) and a dispiriting walk to the dugout. We go on to lose, 10–0, and Finley strikes out fifteen, but if there’s anything I can take from this, it’s that I know I can get these guys out. It may sound strange after I’ve been roughed up that way, but a couple of better pitches in better locations and the whole thing plays out differently.

I wish my start had been better. I wish the outcome were different. But I’m not devastated, and I am ready to make a better showing the next time out.

You did some really good things out there, Bill says. We’ll keep working. You are going to be fine.

Five days later, Sunday of Memorial Day weekend in Oakland, I am back out there again against Tony La Russa’s A’s. Paul O’Neill belts a long double, Bernie Williams homers, and we put up four runs in the first two innings and I protect it well, pitching one-run ball into the sixth. Bob Wickman bails me out of some minor trouble, and when John Wetteland strikes out the side in the ninth, the Yankees have their thirteenth victory of the season and I have the first big league victory of my life. Catcher Jim Leyritz shakes Wetteland’s hand after Stan Javier strikes out to end it, and then manager Buck Showalter shakes his hand, and I get in line and do the same. I am so happy to contribute to a victory that I forget to ask for the game ball. As far as I know everybody else forgets about it, too. We pack up and head for the airport and a flight to Seattle. I never give the game ball much thought after that. I just want to get another ball to throw and help the Yankees win.

I make two more starts, against the A’s and the Mariners, and neither one is memorable. I give up a monstrous grand slam to Geronimo Berroa in the first and a three-run homer to Edgar Martinez in the second. I don’t make it out of the third inning against the Mariners, the Yankees fall into last place, and after the game Buck Showalter calls me into his office.

I have about three weeks of big league service, but even I know it’s not good when you get called into the manager’s office, especially when your ERA is 10.20.

We’re sending you back to Columbus, Buck says. You showed some good things and you shouldn’t be discouraged. Just keep working on it and you will be back.

As I am leaving the office, Derek, who was called up two weeks after me, is summoned in. He is hitting .234 in thirteen games, filling
in for the injured Tony Fernandez. Derek gets the same news I do. Back to the bushes. The date is June 11. The two of us have known nothing but advancement. Going in reverse is not what we have in mind. I know my shoulder is not right, but still…

How can it not sting when your team tells you that you’re not good enough?

Derek and I share a very quiet cab ride over the George Washington Bridge, and then a very quiet meal. At a booth in a Bennigan’s in Fort Lee, New Jersey, across the road from our hotel, we try to figure out what went wrong. It’s not the Last Supper, but we’re not exactly laughing it up, either.

As much as I know I can compete at the big league level, and as much as I believe that I will be back, I am fully aware that second chances are not guaranteed.

I feel like it’s my fault you got sent down, I tell Derek. If I had pitched better today maybe this wouldn’t have happened—to either of us.

It’s not your fault, Derek says. What happened to me has nothing to do with the way you pitched. We just have to keep working hard. If we do that and play the way we can for the Clippers, we’ll be back.

You’re right. That’s how we have to think, I say.

We head back to the hotel and catch a flight the next morning to Charlotte, where we join the Clippers. My shoulder still feels sore, and they decide to put me on the disabled list for two weeks to see if the rest helps.

My first start back after the time off comes on a damp Monday night in Cooper Stadium in Columbus. I am pitching the second game of a twi-night doubleheader against the Rochester Red Wings. Even as I warm up I can tell that my shoulder feels better than it has all year. I am almost pain-free, throwing freely.

The rest has helped. Big-time.

I smoke through the Red Wings in the first inning. In the dugout, my catcher, Jorge Posada, sits down next to me.

What did you eat today?

Why?

Because I’ve never seen you throw this hard. The ball is flying out of your hand.

I don’t know. I feel good, I reply.

I wind up throwing a rain-shortened, five-inning no-hitter. I walk one guy, and Jorge throws him out stealing, so I face the minimum fifteen batters.

This guy is going back to the big leagues and he is never coming back, Jorge says to a couple of our teammates.

Jorge tells me later that I was at 96 miles per hour all night and might’ve touched 97 or 98. It is a major jump that stuns people in the Yankee organization. Years later, I find out that Gene Michael, the Yankees general manager, got bulletins that night about how hard I was throwing.

Michael wanted to know, Was the gun working right? Do we know if this is accurate?

He checked with a scout who was at the game, and the scout confirmed it; his gun had 96 on it, too. Michael apparently was in the middle of talks with the Tigers to acquire David Wells. The Tigers were interested in me.

Once Michael confirmed the accuracy of the radar readings, I was no longer in that deal, or any other deal.

The night after my abbreviated no-hitter, Jorge and I and some of the other Clippers go to our regular dinner spot, Applebee’s. I have filet mignon and a loaded baked potato and vegetables.

Do you have any idea how you could go from throwing 88 to 90 to 96? I’ve never seen anything like it, Jorge says.

My shoulder is healthy, but there is only one answer. And it has
nothing to do with increased filet mignon consumption. It is a gift from the Lord. I have known for a long time that He is using me for His own purposes, that He wants my pitching to help spread the good news about the Gospel of Jesus.

What else could it be? It makes no sense otherwise.

I never pitch for the Columbus Clippers again.

On July 3, Bill Evers tells me I am going back up. I don’t jump up and down on the bed this time. I just get on a plane. Actually, several planes. I’m up at 4:30 to board a flight to Boston (the Clippers are playing at Pawtucket again) and then on to Chicago. By the time I get to my hotel it is evening. I unpack my most precious possession—the red-leather Bible that was a gift from Clara. It has notes in the margins, and verses underlined and passages highlighted. It has been well-thumbed, I can tell you that. The Bible can’t tell you the story of my walk with the Lord, but it can tell you everything about how I try to live, and why the love of the Lord is the foundation of my whole life. For me, the Bible is not just the word of God, but a life road map that is packed with wisdom that you cannot beat even if you spent the next hundred years reading spiritual books and self-help books.