Mo can be found all around us
Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Mariano Rivera speaks during a news conference on Wednesday in Manhattan. Credit: AP / Frank Franklin II
There were the saves, a record number of them.
There were the World Series championships, closed out with his excellence time and again.
There were the historic capstones — the first player to enter baseball’s Hall of Fame on a unanimous vote, the last player to wear Jackie Robinson’s iconic No 42.
There was that magnificently mystifying cutter, a pitch that bedeviled hitters no matter how many times they saw it.
All of it real, all of it part of the legend of Mariano Rivera.
But after watching him for more than two decades, from his arrival in the public eye as an oldish rookie of no particular accomplishment to his departure as baseball’s best-ever closer, I’m not sure the numbers and trophies and titles quite get to the essence of Mo:
He went to work and he did his job.
No muss, no fuss, no preening or screaming for attention, no attempt to try to make sure everyone knew how good he was or what he had accomplished.
He just did the job.
He was composed and reserved, in victory and in defeat. Either way, he showed up at the ballpark the next day, ready to work again, with the same enthusiasm and commitment to the job that he had carried the day before.
Part of that might have been perspective. Rivera grew up in a poor Panamanian fishing village, playing baseball on the beach at low tide with gloves made from cardboard milk cartons, bats that were tree branches, and balls of taped-up shredded fishing nets. It’s a long journey from there to Yankee Stadium, where he served as a great example of a message I tried to convey to my daughters when they were growing up: Find something you enjoy doing and do it the best you can.
Rivera’s election to the Hall of Fame got me thinking about his life and his work. And that got me thinking about my father.
He used to run the dining halls at Yale University. And he’d come home with fabulous stories. About JFK’s commencement address in 1962. About feeding thousands of Black Panthers supporters who descended on the New Haven Green, outside the courthouse and across the street from Yale, to protest during the murder trials of Bobby Seale and other Panthers in 1970 and 1971. About trying to keep students fed during strikes by dining hall workers.
My father could tell a story, and they were captivating, alarming and hilarious by turns. But what I really took away from them, without him saying it, was that when it comes to work, you do what’s needed. There’s a job to do, get it done. If you have to stay late, do that. If you have to take a risk to solve a problem, do that. Just get the job done. And that is its own reward.
As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be someone who can be counted on, someone who’s dependable. I assume that came from my father. I know I saw it play out in Rivera.
Ultimately, this isn’t only about Mo. It’s not even most important about Mo. It’s about everyone who labors to get the job done. People like Mo do it on a bigger stage. But all of our lives are filled with slews of people who work in quiet dignity and make the world run.
It’s the phlebotomist who takes our blood and the nurse who takes our pulse. The engineer who designs our machines and the mechanic who keeps them working. The farmer who grows our food, the bus driver and subway conductor who get us where we’re going, the clerk who processes our vital paperwork, the scientist who gathers the data that inform our decisions, the teacher who helps our children understand.
When you tip your cap to Mo, you tip your cap to them.
I know what people mean when they say there won’t ever be another Rivera. But look around.
Michael Dobie is a member of Newsday’s editorial board.
Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
