James Hussey | Contributing Writer
42. More commonly known in popular culture as the answer to life, the universe and everything, this pronic, abundant number has a deep history in baseball, and one that, in its annual celebration, reminds us of myriad aspects of the American past.
The 2013 Major League Baseball season has been remarkable for many reasons, ranging from Todd Helton’s decision to hang up the cleats to the darker side represented in suspensions meted out for the use of prohibited substances.
These noteworthy events in the inevitable churning of baseball’s calendar pale in significance to the retirement of one Mariano Rivera however.
The Yankees’ closer will retreat from the spotlight of the Bronx, after 23 years in professional baseball, two months shy of his 44th birthday.
Perhaps most significantly, “Mo” will be the last player sanctioned to wear the iconic “42” jersey, a number retired across baseball in 1997 in honour of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the major leagues, breaking the historic colour barrier.
Jackie Robinson was born into a family of sharecroppers in Cairo, Georgia in 1919. Having moved to California, after the departure of his father from the family early in the young Jackie’s life, the Robinsons lived in poverty in a relatively affluent neighbourhood.
Mariano Rivera was born in Panama in 1969 and lived in a poor fishing village where activities of baseball and soccer relied on the ingenuity of the players to fashion balls and bats from household waste products.
To continue this article in a comparative way would be trite, and, on a human level, do a disservice to both players. It is from this renewed starting point that the “significance of 42” must be examined.
Robinson was an outstanding young athlete, and by the time he transferred to UCLA in 1939, American football or track and field seemed the most natural choice for the man from Cairo. Baseball’s personal status fluctuated during Robinson’s early college days, his statistics belying any future career, with only a .097 batting average.
Jackie Robinson famously broke the Major League colour barrier
As has been noted in the careers of the great Ted Williams and Hank Greenberg, World War II played a seismic part in the legacy of Jackie Robinson. Fully intent on a career in football, Robinson joined the racially integrated Honolulu Bears, only for his nascent footballing efforts to be cut short by the attacks on Pearl Harbour.
Like fellow Hall of Famers Williams and Greenberg, Robinson joined the army, and after a racially-motivated court martial was brought against him (and subsequently quashed), Robinson served his time as a coach for army athletics before honourable discharge.
The convoluted journey towards superstardom was fraught with distraction, and Robinson only received an offer to play for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues after coaching the fledgling basketball programme at Sam Huston College, Austin.
Robinson’s Major League career started inauspiciously. Farcical “trials” held by the Boston Red Sox to appease a desegregationist Councilmen offered little hope for any of the Negro League players.
Other teams were, however, accepting of the idea of white and black players pursuing a baseballing career side-by-side. Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, selected Robinson and, in a now famous exchange, wished to find out if his new black talent would withstand the inevitable racial taunts of fans around the league.
An angry, confused Robinson asked if Rickey was “looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?” Rickey’s famous reply, and one that encapsulates many aspects of Robinson sterling service to professional athleticism, asked for “a Negro player with guts enough not to fight back.”
Plying his trade initially with Dodgers AAA-affiliate, the Montreal Royals, in racially-charged Florida, Robinson excelled, garnering MVP honours in his first season. In 1947, a year removed from his exploits on the Gulf Coast, Jackie Robinson would become the first player to break the “colour barrier”, making his debut at the famous Ebbets Field.
Robinson was prepared for insults from all sides, although, somewhat ironically, the invectives of opposing managers and players did more to unite the Dodgers than their own rhetoric. The continuing details of Robinson’s career, from Rookie of the Year to MVP honours, from All Star Games to a world championship were remarkable. The huge step of breaking of the “baseball colour line”, an execrable practice that had existed for 60 years preceding his career, was merely the beginning of his legend.
Mariano Rivera, the boy with English and whose first plane journey brought him to Spring Training as a young Yankee prospect in 1990, worked his way through the organisation as a stellar pitching hope before making his major league debut in 1995.
Wearing the number made famous by Robinson, Mo wound his way through the major league team as a starting pitcher before forming a formidable relief pitching one-two punch with John Wetteland.
By 1997, Rivera had been re-signed by the Yankees at the expense of Wetteland, and was their designated closer.
Allowed to wear the jersey he had been given previous to the league-wide retirement, Rivera produced amazing statistics, revolutionising the role of 9th inning closer, previously highlighted by such luminaries as Dennis Eckersley and “Goose” Gossage.
Rivera will be the last person to wear 42 in the MLB. The number was retired by all teams to honour Jackie Robinson.
By the time Rivera helped the Yankees to their first World Series victory since 1978 in 1996, he was established as the game’s premier relief pitcher, whose cut fastball was quickly recognised as baseball’s most effective pitch.
To think of Mo’s cutter is to realise a force of nature that has blown through professional baseball for the last 17 years. For a pitcher to use one pitch is virtually unheard of, but the preternatural connection Rivera seemed to hold with his technique meant that, despite prior knowledge of what was coming, batters rarely dealt properly with its effects.
By the time the Yankees’ scoreboard production staff began to play Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” upon Rivera’s entering a game in late innings, the simple player was beginning to become a legend.
The phenomenal trajectory of Rivera’s career, from fishing boats in Puerto Caimito to 13-time All-Star and 5-time World Series champion, is down to a number of contributory factors.
As a closer, pressure is a pitcher’s perpetual bedfellow. The final three outs are widely regarded as the most tense, so to record them consistently over the course of 18 years as a “one-dimensional” cutter exponent is miraculous.
Rivera, like Robinson, is an institution, as much a part of the game as a Ruth or Cobb. When the Panamanian announced his retirement from the game at the end of the 2013 season, baseball teams across the league began a processional ceremony sequence that would lead into his last game in the depths of September.
Few players in sport are universally respected. Fewer still receive the treatment that Rivera has earned in his “farewell tour” 2013 season. While holding onto a 44 save year, Mo has been honoured in every visiting stadium with gifts and pre-game farewell celebrations.
Tinged with sadness, these ceremonies nonetheless highlight his all-pervasive popularity across the league. The presentation formalities have been touching and often, amusing, as teams honour Rivera’s formidable talents, despite the fact that, through the years, he ended their playoff hopes indiscriminately.
From Jackie Robinson and Rivera’s entrance into baseball at an opportune time, the number 42 has provided many of baseball’s answers throughout the years. Players like “Iron Man” Cal Ripken and Willie “Pop” Stargell were honoured in a similar fashion when their illustrious careers ended, but the special significance of his achievements and that inimitable jersey number make 2013’s farewell especially poignant.
42 will never be seen on a Major League Baseball field after Mariano Rivera retires his last batters in the New York Yankees’ season-ending series against the Houston Astros.
The game is drawing to a close and Yankee stadium is on its feet as “Enter Sandman” blares out over loudspeakers. Manager Joe Girardi is making his way to the mound to take the ball from Dellin Betances, a rookie pitcher with high hopes. A lithe, deceptively tall man is making his way from the bullpen. Tears stream from the eyes of the Yankees’ equivalent “Ultras” section, the Bleacher Creatures.
Joe Girardi will hand the ball to Mariano Rivera for the last time in the Bronx. An inning and a third later, Andy Pettitte and Derek Jeter will emerge from the dugout to relieve Mariano Rivera of duty. The Stadium erupts, and Mo is hugged by his long-term friends, as their broad shoulders hide his tears from prying cameras.
It seems fitting to draw this piece to a close by looking towards the words of another of baseball’s greatest pitchers – Christy Mathewson.
From the master of early 1900’s pitching, to the unflappable Mariano Rivera, the words ring true across decades of sporting turbulence: “No man can have a ‘yellow streak’ and last. He must pay much attention to his nerves and temperament. He must hide every flaw.”
