Mariano Rivera's a true Yankee, almost mythical in his dominance

Here are the greatest ERA+ in baseball history (more than 1,000 innings pitched):

1. Mariano Rivera, 198
2. Pedro Martinez, 154
3. Lefty Grove, 148
4. Walter Johnson, 147
5. Five pitchers tied at 146

Look at that -- Rivera's ERA+ is more than FORTY POINTS higher than anyone else in baseball history. How about WHIP -- walks-plus-hits per inning pitched?

1. Addie Joss, 0.968
2. Ed Walsh, 1.000
3. Mariano Rivera, 1.02
4. John Ward, 1.044*

*You will note the other three on the list are all pitchers from the Deadball Era.

How about number of seasons with an ERA under 2.00? Walter Johnson did it 11 times -- all in the Deadball Era. Mariano Rivera did it eight times during the biggest explosion of offense since the 1930s. Of course, you can't compare Rivera to Walter Johnson or any other starter; Rivera has not even thrown 85 innings in a season since he became a closer in 1997.

Then again, you cannot compare Walter Johnson or any other starter to Rivera either because of the 1,055 innings the man has pitched, about 900 of them were eighth inning, ninth inning or later, with the game on the line, with the crowd freaking out, with the metropolis tabloid editors holding the back pages (How's this for the headline: "Cry Me A Rivera?" Or "Oh no Mariano!"), with the opposing team, as it says in Casey at the Bat, clinging to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast.

And with Rivera on the mound, Mighty Casey did strike out time and time and time again. Rivera struck them out and busted their bats on that same pitch over and over and over, one pitch, a low-to-mid-90s cut fastball. One pitch. It seems impossible.

But what a pitch. Jim Thome calls it the greatest pitch in baseball history, and who could argue? There's Sandy Koufax's curveball, Satchel Paige's fastball, Steve Carlton's slider, Carl Hubbell's screwball, Bruce Sutter's splitter, Gaylord Perry's spitter, Pedro Martinez's change-up, but all of them threw other pitches, set-up pitches. Rivera has no opening act. He comes at hitters with the same pitch, one pitch, again and again, hard fastball, sharp break to the left at the last possible instant, that pitch has undoubtedly broken more bats per inning than any other, it has left more batters frozen per inning than any other, it has broken more hearts than Brian's Song

Rivera says he learned the pitch while fooling around one day in 1997, playing catch with his friend and Panama countryman Ramiro Mendoza. By then, Rivera was already the Yankees closer. And he was already terrific -- he was coming off a superhuman 1996 season. That year, as a setup man to John Wetteland, he had pitched 107 innings, struck out 130, and allowed the league to hit only .189. But he had done that with pure power -- a high-90s fastball and impeccable control. And such things don't last.