jon cuny

In 2013, Mariano Rivera announced it was his last season. Every team in baseball lined up to give him retirement gifts. A gold record. A rocking chair made from broken bats. A fire hose nozzle from the FDNY. He accepted all of it. But at every single ballpark, he asked for something else first. He wanted to meet the employees. Not the executives. Not the owners. The ushers, the ticket sellers, the custodians, the grounds crew. The people who show up at 6 a.m. and leave at midnight and never get thanked by anybody. The Yankees' media relations director helped coordinate it, working with each team to pull together a group. And Rivera did it at stop after stop, all season long, in his final year, at 43 years old, while still closing games. Here's what he told about 20 Rangers employees in Arlington: "We would never have a chance to see you guys, and that's why I wanted to do this. That was important to me, to make sure to thank those that work behind the scenes. No one sees them." In Cleveland, he sat down with 25 staff members for half an hour before a game. And partway through, he stopped and asked a question. "Where's the drummer?" For forty years, a man named John Adams had sat at the top of the bleachers in Cleveland with a bass drum, pounding out a beat to start rallies. Every home game. Four decades. He bought his own ticket for the seat next to him so the drum could sit there. Adams raised a drumstick from the back of the room so Rivera could find him. Rivera's response: "Hey, you the man. Being loyal, being there day in and day out. I really respect that." At Fenway, he finally met a man named Baz who had been a fixture in that ballpark for decades. Baz afterward: "Pretty special. I've got tears in my eyes." In Anaheim, where Rivera made his major league debut in 1995 and got his first career save in 1996, he sat with longtime Angels staffers and listened to their stories. At every one of these, he took a photo with every single person and handed each of them a signed baseball. His explanation of the whole thing: "I want to be remembered as a player that gave for others. It's not that I'm better than anyone else; that's not true. I have been blessed and treat everybody the same because I wanted to be treated like that. With respect." And this wasn't a farewell lap by a guy limping to the finish. He saved 44 games that season with a 2.11 ERA at 43 years old. He pitched a scoreless inning at the All-Star Game, which kept his career All-Star ERA at 0.00 across thirteen appearances. He finished with 652 saves, the most in the history of baseball, and a 0.70 postseason ERA that will probably never be approached. In 2019 he became the first player ever elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously. Every single ballot. Not Ruth. Not Mays. Not Aaron. Mariano Rivera. The greatest closer who ever lived spent his last season making sure the people nobody notices got to be noticed once. For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap