Mariano Rivera - Excellence Personified

I'll begin by saying that I’m a life-long Red Sox fan, and therefore am genetically disposed to hate the Yankees.  That being said, what happened Thursday night is terrible: Rivera, out shagging flies before the start of the game, ran into the wall and tore his ACL, certainly ending his playing for the year and possibly ending his career.

For anyone who loves baseball, or sports in general, or is just a ‘student of the human condition,’ this is a sad thing, sad because Rivera is, in his chosen profession, what we should all strive to be: someone who loves what he does and does it as well as he possibly can.  That Rivera also does it as well as anyone else has ever done it is (or was) for all of us to enjoy.  Even as a Red Sox fan, who has more than once seen Rivera ‘nail the coffin shut’ on the Red Sox, watching Rivera come in and get 3 outs was watching a true master at his craft.

Whether it is sports, watching Messi nonchalantly tap in the ball with his heel, or Brady lead the Pats down the field for a score with just a minute left in the game, that kind of artistry is every bit as magical as listening to Yo Yo Ma or Itzhak Perlman (a devout Mets fan), and thus his loss for the rest of the year and perhaps permanently is a sad thing.

I have written elsewhere about the loss of Junior Seau, and obviously the death of Junior Seau is a much greater loss then a torn knee.  But Mariano Rivera and Junior Seau shared this: they were true masters at their craft, they not only played with brilliance, they loved what they did and in that lay the roots of their excellence: they loved what they did and worked as hard at mastering their craft as anyone else in their respective game (or art).  They are examples to us all in anything we do.

Here’s hoping Mariano returns to play next year, even if it is bad news for the Red Sox.