WHY RIVERA NEEDS TO PITCH IN 2012 FIRST...

We need to stop the hysteria. Mariano is not retiring now… but he may at the end of the season. So what the hell is the New York Sports media doing? The media frenzy is all over this since Mariano told everyone that he knows what he will do and he will tell us all when the time is right...read HERE. So... now we guess and I guess we guess all season. People and media is right now at this moment trying to piece together who can replace the irreplaceable Mariano Rivera. Look, I love Mariano Rivera, I’m not afraid to say that…I’ll stand on the top of a mountain and scream it, don’t challenge me... but the point is this... life goes on after Mo. Let’s get real, Mariano is the greatest closer ever, but guess what, there will be another. We will survive without Mariano Rivera.That's not a slap, that's the reality and my point is give the guy alittle space for crying out loud, he still has work to do.

We can’t sit here before 162 games are even played and panic like this. We need to give the man respect. He hinted toward possibly retiring... or not. We don’t know… he knows… Derek Jeter probably knows, but we don’t know, so shouldn't it just be business as usual for us? Seriously, I believe we should sit back and watch the man work. Let’s enjoy him again for another season before we get nutty here.

Let’s look at the good things in Mariano’s career. I remember that lanky kid come up and set up John Wetteland and even then he was exciting, but like I wrote in WHY SEIZING THE MOMENT MAKES YOU NEW YORK’S DARLING, he found a niche as the Yankees closer and he never looked back. He fine tuned his craft and to this day, I still don’t know how the hell he goes out there with 1 pitch and Mow’s them down…no pun intended. He has 603 saves and he’ll have plenty more this season. My point is, the guys got a lot of baseball in him and we’re already thinking about his replacement. I say we as fans need to love every moment with him, it's not our job, nor the NY Sports media’s job to do find a replacement for Mo, it’s Yankee brass and according to Hal Steinbrenner, they have so much respect for Rivera, they’ll do whatever Mariano wants to do. Read HERE.

Sure, speculations fun, we do that kind of stuff here on occasion, but nothing's set in stone yet. Just a lot of baseball to play. Mariano this year will provide leadership to the new guys coming in as well as offer confidence when he takes the mound. He’s done it for years and he’ll do it again like it’s business as usual, whether the man is retiring at the end of 2012, tomorrow or not at all, his game plan never changes, wins are what are important and it's been the same approach for him for years. So yeah, my take on this is simple, one thing we can’t do is panic. Can we ask questions about who his successor will be? Sure, but don’t replace this great man yet, Mariano is one of a kind, and we need to enjoy him while we still can.

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