Mariano Rivera
Acoustic Piano's the Best
He was rooting for the PHILLIES, but loves Baseball,l first and
foremost.
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Rivera is the only athlete who mentions the God word in any way that I
take seriously because it doesn't seem self serving or insincere but
literal - he means it and seems to know what he's talking about. It's
hard to imagine what he does or where he goes after the game's over
and he takes the uniform off. Maybe back to the Jesuit monastery where
he lives, helping the fathers tend their garden and make their rare
herbal brandy. Or back to the Goya painting he stepped out of. Or
maybe he turns into the fierce, proud celestial hawk he resembles, and
lives in a cage under the Stadium feeding on bits of dead enemy
hitters.
It's hard to imagine him having a PR guy or an investment advisor or
even an agent. Can you imagine him in a bar chatting up a dame or
dating a movie star or appearing on a sitcom, or "Dancing With the
Stars"? He doesn't point to the heavens after every feat, doesn't host
celebrity golf tournaments, get thrown out of nightclubs, or have one
of those fashionable, PR friendly inner city charities or do any of
the other lame, self indulgent, ego soaked BS that mere mortal star
athletes do these days to drive us crazy.
He truly has Mystique - that otherness quality that DiMaggio had
except Mo's is more real because he doesn't try so hard to protect it
- he just has it, like he has the cut fastball. Nobody else like him,
but if he were to suddenly turn human the next 10 days or so would
suit me.
