Amazing

I have seen Mariano Rivera do amazing things.

He once signed autographs for about 15 minutes outside Yankee Stadium while holding two of his children.

“Don’t your arms get tired?” someone asked.

“No,” he said with a smile. “Do yours?”

Everyone laughed and the greatest closer ever kept signing.

Rivera puts everyone else first: His family, his friends, his teammates and even a bunch of people that wait around to watch him walk out of Yankee Stadium.

“Thanks for signing,” someone said that day.

“Thanks for being here,” he said.

Rivera has been at the end of every big win for a dozen years. He got the final out in three-consecutive World Series and pitched three shutout innings to win the 2003 American League Pennant. He saved Roger Clemens’s 300th win and Andy Pettitte’s 200th.

“I wouldn’t want anyone else closing out my games,” Pettitte said after that milestone victory. “He’s absolutely amazing.”

Rivera has saved everyone’s bacon about a millions times, but he never wants to talk about that.

“I am just a simple worker,” Rivera likes to say. “I’m nothing without my teammates.”

And they are nothing without you.