Mariano Rivera Elected Unanimously to Baseball Hall of Fame
Nobody could hit the former Yankees closer except Edgar Martinez. Now, they will enter baseball’s Hall of Fame together.
Mariano Rivera, left, with Edgar Martinez during a pregame ceremony in 2013. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
13 COMMENTS
By
Jared Diamond
Updated Jan. 22, 2019 6:35 p.m. ET
Mariano Rivera made a lot of very good baseball players look very bad for a very long time. A total of 993 different hitters recorded at least one at-bat against Rivera during his 19-year major-league career with the New York Yankees. Close to two-thirds of them posted a batting average of .200 or worse against him, with nearly half failing to record a single hit off Rivera and his magical cut fastball.
For that reason and so many more, Rivera was elected into the Hall of Fame on Tuesday by the voting members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He is the first player in history to be voted in unanimously, a remarkable achievement that has long been seen as an impossibility. As Rivera receives the sport’s ultimate honor, it seems fitting that he will be joined in Cooperstown this summer by his greatest nemesis: Edgar Martínez—the only person ever to conquer the great Rivera.
Martínez, the longtime Seattle Mariners designated hitter, owned Rivera in a way that almost doesn’t sound real. Including the playoffs, Martínez went 11-for-19 against him for a .579 batting average—by far the best of anybody who faced Rivera more than five times. Five of those hits went for extra bases, making Martínez the only player to accomplish that feat. Rivera even intentionally walked Martínez twice, proving that Martínez achieved the near-impossible: He scared the fearless.
“He had more than my number,” Rivera said in an interview with Charlie Rose after his retirement in 2013. “He had my breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
Edgar Martinez finished his 18-year career with 2,247 hits. PHOTO: AP
Before developing the cutter that he calls a “gift from God,” Rivera came up in 1995 as a conventional starting pitcher, and not a particularly good one. Martínez devoured him that year, going 6-for-7 with two home runs, a double and five RBIs. That includes a single in the American League Division Series, the same series that provided Martínez’s signature moment: a two-run double down the left-field line off Jack McDowell that scored Ken Griffey Jr. from first base and sent the Mariners to the next round.
But even after Rivera became Rivera, Martínez kept on hitting. He doubled in both of his matchups against him in 1996. The only time they faced each other in 1997, Rivera walked him intentionally, a strategy he famously loathed. Joe Torre, Rivera’s manager with the Yankees from 1996 through 2007, distinctly remembers instructing Rivera to intentionally walk Carlos Delgado against his will in a game against the New York Mets in 2006. The next batter, David Wright, won the game with a rocket into deep center field. Afterward, Rivera approached Torre and said, “Let’s not do that again.”
“The one thing about Mariano,” Torre said, “is when he’s out on the mound, he doesn’t think anybody can hit him.”
Except Martínez, despite his insistence that Rivera threw the best cutter he ever saw. The problem for Rivera, however, was that his cutter, the pitch that turned hundreds of bats into sawdust and dominated pretty much everybody, played directly into Martínez’s strengths.
To right-handed hitters like Martínez, Rivera’s cutter darted to the outside part of the plate, taking what looked on television like a sharp left turn. Martínez lived for pitches away, frequently looking to drive balls up the middle or to the opposite field, allowing him to neutralize Rivera’s primary weapon.
“His ball would cut away from you, so you could not try to pull it,” Martínez said. “You have to follow that pitch and go in that direction. I would tell myself that for a pitcher like Mariano, you just can’t over-swing.”
New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera had 652 saves in 19 seasons. PHOTO: AP
Alex Rodríguez, a teammate of both players, says he knows the exact moment everything changed. When Rodríguez arrived on the Mariners months removed from his high-school prom in 1994, Martínez quickly became his mentor. “He had a Ph.D. in hitting from Harvard,” Rodríguez said.
In the ninth inning of Game 1 of the ALCS in 2001, Martínez stepped up to the plate against Rivera. Heading into the at-bat, Martínez was 10-for-13 against him. But this time, Rivera had something special he was saving for his toughest foe: a sinker, a fastball that resembled a cutter out of his hand, but broke in to righty hitters instead of away. Martínez swung and got jammed, fisting a weak ground ball to first base, ending the game and leaving him with nothing besides the handle of his bat.
Martínez was stunned. He had never seen Rivera throw that pitch and didn’t realize he had it in his arsenal. From that point on, Martínez went 1-for-5 against Rivera.
“That pitch became an incredible lethal weapon for Mariano,” Rodríguez said. “But it was started to defend against Edgar Martínez’s crazy hitting.”
The road to enshrinement couldn’t have been more different for this unlikely pairing. Rivera’s journey was preordained. He has the career record for saves with 652, to go along with his 2.21 ERA. He is regarded as arguably the best clutch performer ever, putting up an absurd 0.70 ERA in the playoffs, helping to power the Yankees to five championships in a 14-season span.
New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera, left, during a pregame ceremony with former Seattle Mariners designated hitter Edgar Martinez, right, in 2013. PHOTO: AP
It wasn’t quite that simple for Martínez to gain entrance into the Hall. Despite his lifetime .312 batting average and .933 OPS, he struggled to generate support. Martínez received just 36.2% of the vote when he first appeared on the ballot in 2010 and dropped all the way to 25.2% in 2014, likely being penalized because he didn’t have a defensive position. Now, thanks to a reappraisal of his career and a dedicated fan campaign, Martínez earned 85.4% of the vote, passing the 75% threshold in his 10th and final year of eligibility. (The BBWAA also voted in pitchers Mike Mussina and Roy Halladay, who died in a plane crash in 2017.)
Other players had some modicum of success against Rivera. David Ortiz went 13-for-38 off him. Rafael Palmeiro went 9-for-27 with two homers. But nobody hit Rivera quite like Martínez, and now they’re both headed to Cooperstown.
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“The good part is now we can look back and say we both competed against each other and did the best we could,” Martínez said. “In the end, I wish I had the World Series he has.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-one-hitter-mariano-rivera-couldnt-get-out-11548168734
Nobody could hit the former Yankees closer except Edgar Martinez. Now, they will enter baseball’s Hall of Fame together.
Mariano Rivera, left, with Edgar Martinez during a pregame ceremony in 2013. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
13 COMMENTS
By
Jared Diamond
Updated Jan. 22, 2019 6:35 p.m. ET
Mariano Rivera made a lot of very good baseball players look very bad for a very long time. A total of 993 different hitters recorded at least one at-bat against Rivera during his 19-year major-league career with the New York Yankees. Close to two-thirds of them posted a batting average of .200 or worse against him, with nearly half failing to record a single hit off Rivera and his magical cut fastball.
For that reason and so many more, Rivera was elected into the Hall of Fame on Tuesday by the voting members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He is the first player in history to be voted in unanimously, a remarkable achievement that has long been seen as an impossibility. As Rivera receives the sport’s ultimate honor, it seems fitting that he will be joined in Cooperstown this summer by his greatest nemesis: Edgar Martínez—the only person ever to conquer the great Rivera.
Martínez, the longtime Seattle Mariners designated hitter, owned Rivera in a way that almost doesn’t sound real. Including the playoffs, Martínez went 11-for-19 against him for a .579 batting average—by far the best of anybody who faced Rivera more than five times. Five of those hits went for extra bases, making Martínez the only player to accomplish that feat. Rivera even intentionally walked Martínez twice, proving that Martínez achieved the near-impossible: He scared the fearless.
“He had more than my number,” Rivera said in an interview with Charlie Rose after his retirement in 2013. “He had my breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
Edgar Martinez finished his 18-year career with 2,247 hits. PHOTO: AP
Before developing the cutter that he calls a “gift from God,” Rivera came up in 1995 as a conventional starting pitcher, and not a particularly good one. Martínez devoured him that year, going 6-for-7 with two home runs, a double and five RBIs. That includes a single in the American League Division Series, the same series that provided Martínez’s signature moment: a two-run double down the left-field line off Jack McDowell that scored Ken Griffey Jr. from first base and sent the Mariners to the next round.
But even after Rivera became Rivera, Martínez kept on hitting. He doubled in both of his matchups against him in 1996. The only time they faced each other in 1997, Rivera walked him intentionally, a strategy he famously loathed. Joe Torre, Rivera’s manager with the Yankees from 1996 through 2007, distinctly remembers instructing Rivera to intentionally walk Carlos Delgado against his will in a game against the New York Mets in 2006. The next batter, David Wright, won the game with a rocket into deep center field. Afterward, Rivera approached Torre and said, “Let’s not do that again.”
“The one thing about Mariano,” Torre said, “is when he’s out on the mound, he doesn’t think anybody can hit him.”
Except Martínez, despite his insistence that Rivera threw the best cutter he ever saw. The problem for Rivera, however, was that his cutter, the pitch that turned hundreds of bats into sawdust and dominated pretty much everybody, played directly into Martínez’s strengths.
To right-handed hitters like Martínez, Rivera’s cutter darted to the outside part of the plate, taking what looked on television like a sharp left turn. Martínez lived for pitches away, frequently looking to drive balls up the middle or to the opposite field, allowing him to neutralize Rivera’s primary weapon.
“His ball would cut away from you, so you could not try to pull it,” Martínez said. “You have to follow that pitch and go in that direction. I would tell myself that for a pitcher like Mariano, you just can’t over-swing.”
New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera had 652 saves in 19 seasons. PHOTO: AP
Alex Rodríguez, a teammate of both players, says he knows the exact moment everything changed. When Rodríguez arrived on the Mariners months removed from his high-school prom in 1994, Martínez quickly became his mentor. “He had a Ph.D. in hitting from Harvard,” Rodríguez said.
In the ninth inning of Game 1 of the ALCS in 2001, Martínez stepped up to the plate against Rivera. Heading into the at-bat, Martínez was 10-for-13 against him. But this time, Rivera had something special he was saving for his toughest foe: a sinker, a fastball that resembled a cutter out of his hand, but broke in to righty hitters instead of away. Martínez swung and got jammed, fisting a weak ground ball to first base, ending the game and leaving him with nothing besides the handle of his bat.
Martínez was stunned. He had never seen Rivera throw that pitch and didn’t realize he had it in his arsenal. From that point on, Martínez went 1-for-5 against Rivera.
“That pitch became an incredible lethal weapon for Mariano,” Rodríguez said. “But it was started to defend against Edgar Martínez’s crazy hitting.”
The road to enshrinement couldn’t have been more different for this unlikely pairing. Rivera’s journey was preordained. He has the career record for saves with 652, to go along with his 2.21 ERA. He is regarded as arguably the best clutch performer ever, putting up an absurd 0.70 ERA in the playoffs, helping to power the Yankees to five championships in a 14-season span.
New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera, left, during a pregame ceremony with former Seattle Mariners designated hitter Edgar Martinez, right, in 2013. PHOTO: AP
It wasn’t quite that simple for Martínez to gain entrance into the Hall. Despite his lifetime .312 batting average and .933 OPS, he struggled to generate support. Martínez received just 36.2% of the vote when he first appeared on the ballot in 2010 and dropped all the way to 25.2% in 2014, likely being penalized because he didn’t have a defensive position. Now, thanks to a reappraisal of his career and a dedicated fan campaign, Martínez earned 85.4% of the vote, passing the 75% threshold in his 10th and final year of eligibility. (The BBWAA also voted in pitchers Mike Mussina and Roy Halladay, who died in a plane crash in 2017.)
Other players had some modicum of success against Rivera. David Ortiz went 13-for-38 off him. Rafael Palmeiro went 9-for-27 with two homers. But nobody hit Rivera quite like Martínez, and now they’re both headed to Cooperstown.
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“The good part is now we can look back and say we both competed against each other and did the best we could,” Martínez said. “In the end, I wish I had the World Series he has.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-one-hitter-mariano-rivera-couldnt-get-out-11548168734
