Best

There is no point in reiterating what everyone else has been saying about Mariano Rivera. In fact, I have written about Mariano Rivera, mostly when he hurt himself last May, wondering if even he could rally from that and come back at the age of 43. He has, but as he noted himself, there's not much gas left in the tank. This season will truly be it for Mo.

You can talk all you want about his astonishing statistics and his ability to be as consistent as consistent can be for 17 years in a job in which the best are consistent for maybe two or three years. You can note--and this is the only stat I'll cite among the mountains being thrown around, that in the postseason, when the pressure is highest and the spotlight most brilliant, his ERA is 0.70. That means he gives up less than one run every nine innings in the most difficult situations in baseball.

You can even note that Rivera is the all-time leader in saves, although that statistic is among the sillier ones in a game loaded with silly statistics.

What I've always found the most impressive about a very, very impressive baseball player is his manner. Rivera didn't invent the closer position, but he perfected it. A lot--most--modern closers, given one quarter the ability he has, would be bellowing at the top of their lungs after every game, making the opponent look foolish, and making themselves look foolish when they fail, which everyone--even Rivera--will do on occasion.

That kind of behavior is not Mo. Not once. Not ever. He respects the other players and he respects the game too much to make a show of himself. He is confident, certainly. Anyone who could do half of what he's done would be insane not to have confidence. But bluster? Gloating? One-upsmanship? Never.

Given only one word to encapsulate this man from the perspective of a fan--I can't claim to know him even as well as the reporters who cover the team, or the guy who sells peanuts in the upper deck--there are a lot of possibilities. I've seen words like "class" and "dignity" and "grace" bandied about, and they would be accurate. I've seen "greatest" and "peerless" and "best ever," and those are true, but they don't really describe the experience of watching Rivera do what he's done better than anyone else in history.

Joy. That's the word I'd use. Nobody plays the game with as much joy as Mariano Rivera. Not even Nick Swisher, a guy who always seems to be having the best time of anyone on the field. Rivera's joy is in the amazing gift he says he's been given, the ability to do what he does and to do it for the Yankees. He has joy, and being Rivera, he gives it.

Since 1996, he has given a lot of joy to fans like me, up in the fifth tier or watching on television, for all the things he's done and perhaps more for the things he has chosen not to do. No pointing at the sky after a save is complete (yes, a deeply religious man, but that's his business and not yours). No screaming and showing off. No dopey TV commercials working with local car salesmen. No proclamations that he is the greatest pitcher on the planet--and he's one of the few who could make a legitimate case.

No. Rivera has done what he's done quietly. The accolades, the proclamations, the declarations that he is indeed the best ever, those have come from others, not from Rivera himself. He says he's been lucky to have teammates who gave him opportunities. They say they would not have the World Series rings they own without him, and they are undoubtedly right.

Consider this: After the press conference at which Rivera and most of his family sat and discussed his retirement after this season (which is not shaping up to be a fabulous one, so get your tickets to see Mo while you can) broke up, the assembled members of the press, who are paid to cover a team and to be objective about what they see and the people they cover, did something I have never seen them do at such a gathering before.

They applauded.

Okay, This Is Bad

When Alex Rodriguez had to have hip surgery and we were told he'd be out at least half the season, let's face it--some of us Yankee fans were less than distraught. At the plate in the 2012 playoffs, Rodriguez, once one of the most feared bats in baseball, looked like we would if we were out there trying to hit Major League pitching. And to be honest, most of us never liked the guy anyway.

When Phil Hughes, the pitcher everyone was expecting to have a monster year for monetary reasons (he can be a free agent after this season) got back spasms that turned out to be a bulging disc during routine fielding drills, we thought for a second about CC, Andy, Kuroda, Nova and Phelps, with Pineda hopefully to come in the second half, and we thought, "Enjoy your new team next year, Phil."

When Curtis Granderson got hit with a pitch in his first spring training at-bat and broke his arm, we started to get concerned. He'll be out until mid-May? The guy who might strike out half the time, but hits home runs the other half? Uh-oh. With Nick Swisher and Russell Martin gone to be replaced by one of the game's most adept singles hitters and... somebody, the lack of power on the Yankees (who thought we'd ever see that phrase?) was starting to become a serious concern. Even Brian Cashman noted that, despite his belief in the home run, this team this year would be taking a pretty serious step backward in the long ball department. Double uh-oh.

When Cashman himself broke his right leg skydiving (!), we thought, "Well, that's sort of the way this whole thing has been going since October, isn't it? At least now he'll understand how his players feel when they get hurt." As long as Cashman could use his dialing finger, his value to the team had not diminished.

But now, with Mark Teixiera, perhaps the last power threat the Yankees have not named Cano, went down with a strained wrist (what?) and lost until mid-May at best, things have gotten serious. Can this team win 90 games? 85? 80?

Cashman really has himself in a pickle now as he hobbles around on his crutches and tries to fix an aging, injured, incomplete team. He never found that corner outfielder to replace Swisher, counting on Granderson to provide enough power for all three positions. He never found a catcher at all, and the starting tandem of Francisco Cervelli and Chris Stewart still isn't exactly striking fear into the heart of the opponent. Remember a couple of years ago, when all the Yankees had were awesome catching prospects who were going to take over the world any minute now? Where'd THAT go?

And now, there's a first baseman to be found. True, the season doesn't end in May, not even close, but what kind of Mark Teixiera are we getting back? What kind of Granderson? There were rumblings over the winter about how Tex was declining--from Tex!--and chatter on sports radio that Granderson should be traded while he still has value.

Derek Jeter, coming back from serious ankle surgery, is probably the brightest story in camp this spring. Mo Rivera is the classiest guy in the world and I'd bet on him to come in and be exactly as he was before he left, but he's 43 years old. Andy Pettitte looks like the pitching coach. Would it really be such a bad idea to see if Jorge Posada is enjoying retirement all that much?

This is not shaping up to be a stellar season. Either someone's going to step up to the plate--literally--and impress, or we're looking at mid-80's vintage Yankees, and anyone who was around for that knows, it's not an era we'd wish to relive.

Yeah, this is bad, okay.