The biggest question surrounding Mariano Rivera’s pending induction to the Hall of Fame this week has been a tired one: Will he be the first player in baseball history to appear on 100 percent of the ballots cast?
Why is it tired? Because we all know there have been plenty of players who deserved induction by acclimation. There is no way to argue against, say, Willie Mays as a Hall of Famer, or Joe DiMaggio, or Ted Williams, or Hank Aaron. Is it even possible that someone could have seen Greg Maddux pitch and make a reasonable argument he wasn’t a Hall of Famer? How about Bob Feller?
Here’s the point: Of course Rivera should get 100 percent of the vote. But so should those other players we just mentioned. So should’ve a dozen other immortals. Maybe if Twitter had been around to publicly shame whichever writers left DiMaggio or Williams or Mays off their ballots we could have been done with this sooner. And maybe there really is a voter extant who will take a step farther the decision of a Worcester, Mass.-based writer who declared he wouldn’t vote for Rivera — but also chose to not submit a ballot at all, thus preserving the chance of unanimity — and will simply deem Rivera’s forever career wasn’t quite forever enough. And leave his name off a submitted ballot.
In which case we’ll probably have to wait for Mike Trout to retire before finding as likely a candidate to do this all again.
The more integrating debate, at least for those of us in New York, is this:
For decades — or at least since 1969 — there has been an unyielding, unbending hierarchy of the greatest of the all-time great Yankees. It is sort of a platinum Core Four — call it a Rushmore Four, if you like — and though some might argue with the order of the names, the four names in question are almost always the same.
1. Babe Ruth
2. Lou Gehrig
3. Joe DiMaggio
4. Mickey Mantle
Almost every argument, if there is an argument to be had, has begun with the question: “So who’s fifth on the list?” For years, Yogi Berra was a solid fifth wheel. There was a time when it seemed Derek Jeter would rise that high, the No. 5 slot for No. 2, and there are some who would probably still argue as much. The dearth of pitching among that fearsome foursome might inspire someone to have nominated Whitey Ford or Lefty Gomez through the years, though at this point it seems that, at the very least, Rivera will settle in nicely in the five hole, he’ll respectfully nudge Yogi to six, and the recalibrated argument will be: After the Solid Six, who’s the seventh-best Yankee of all time?
But the key phrase there is “at the very least.”
Because it is absolutely possible Rivera belongs higher on that list.
Three of the names are unassailable. Ruth and Gehrig are permanent fixtures at the top. There is simply no way to minimize what the two of them were not only to the franchise but to the sport, the very heart of Murderer’s Row, their numbers, 3 and 4 — given to them because that was their positions in the most feared batting order ever — eternal beacons.
And DiMaggio is damn close behind. He may actually have been more popular than Ruth and more beloved than Gehrig in the context of his own times, and like his two professional forebears he is a an essential piece of the pinstriped foundation. He may be a half step behind the Sultan of Swat and the Iron Horse, but he’s also a dozen or more steps ahead of Mantle or whoever else you want to put No. 4.
Now, speaking of “whoever else” ….
Now, look: You are playing with live firecrackers in your hands if you’re going to argue that Rivera should supplant Mantle. You are the baseball equivalent of Martin Luther, all but begging for an immediate expulsion and excommunication. Such is the pull Mantle had on his own generation of Yankees fan. And Mantle did his heroic feats just as television was truly dawning as a power, so his elite years were accessible to far more many millions of fans than Ruth’s, Gehrig’s and DiMaggio’s.
There are grandfathers and great-grandfathers, men who have lived full lives and grown jaded and cynical who still grow misty-eyed thinking of the young Mantle — of his titanic power and his blazing speed, the way he could dominate from both sides of the plate. He remains an almost mythical figure in the memories and imaginations of Yankees fans, even those too young to have seen his exploits anywhere other than old baseball home movies or grainy old TV clips.
OK. That said … ask yourself this:
Who had the better career: Mickey Mantle or Mariano Rivera?
It’s tricky, right? If you build a case for one, you are necessarily poking holes in the other. And neither deserve to have holes poked in their careers. In truth, in their times, both played in rarefied air. When Mantle played, the best thing you could be was a power hitter, to blast home runs, and Mantle hit 536 of them. To see his place on the all-time list now (18th) is to overlook the fact that on the day he retired he was third, behind just Ruth and Mays. Mantle played in 12 World Series, won seven. By any measure, by every measure, this was one of the great careers in baseball history (thought it was only good enough to woo 88.2 percent of the voters on his only appearance on the ballot, in 1974).
Rivera’s first season, 1995, came 27 years after Mantle’s last one. By then the game had changed in a hundred ways, both subtle and profound, but one of the major shifts was this: Relief pitchers were no longer failed starters clinging to their careers by working out of the bullpen; by 1995 many pitchers were opting for relief roles. They picked the bullpen, not the other way around. Dennis Eckersley had already redefined the value of the “closer,” a job that simply didn’t exist during baseball’s first 100 years — and through all of Mantle’s 18.
It was a job that Rivera mastered. His 652 total saves may never be approached, but beyond that record was the unparalleled, unspoken dominance that yielded it. Rivera spent his whole career in high-leverage situations. He threw the final pitch in four World Series clinchings. Though he wasn’t perfect in the postseason (see 1997, 2001, 2004) he was as close to it as the law allows, with a postseason ERA of 0.70. He made a difficult job look absurdly easy, wore the stress with a smile.
Me? I say that’s enough to gain him membership in the Rushmore Four, though I’d also simply push to see if we could get a waiver to commission the sculptors to make it five busts instead of four. After all, neither Mantle nor Rivera should be penalized for the reality that there are more Rushmore-worthy Yankees than Presidents.