Mariano Rivera didn’t just become the first player unanimously elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame, he may be the first to play a significant role in each of his fellow inductees’ careers.
Much has been made about how well Edgar Martinez hit off Rivera, but of Rivera’s 652 regular-season saves, only Andy Pettitte (72) started and won more of them than Mike Mussina (49), who will go into Cooperstown with Rivera in July.
And then there’s Roy Halladay, who may also be the only player to get Rivera fined by his teammates.
Before the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium in 2008, Rivera and Halladay — still with the Blue Jays — spoke together in the outfield and Rivera gave the right-hander some pointers on his cutter.
Halladay, already one of the game’s top pitchers, went on to have some of the best results of his career in the ensuing years in Toronto and Philadelphia.
“I got in trouble,’’ Rivera said of the conversation with a laugh during a press conference for the Hall of Fame on Wednesday at the St. Regis Hotel in midtown. “We always talked about pitching and I was teaching him the grip of the cutter and he did [learn it].”
Too well, in fact, for Rivera’s teammates, who still had to face him.
“Actually, he was throwing the pitch and Derek [Jeter] and all the hitters from my team were mad at me,’’ Rivera said. “As a matter of fact, I got fined by our kangaroo court because Halladay was so good against us and they blamed me. I said, ‘You guys didn’t hit the ball.’ ”
In fairness to Rivera, Halladay was a force against the Yankees during most of his career. In 38 games — 36 starts — versus the Yankees, Halladay went 18-7 with a 2.98 ERA.
Rivera, Mussina and Martinez each paid tribute Wednesday to Halladay, who was killed when a plane he was flying crashed in November 2017.
Halladay’s wife and two sons were at the press conference representing Halladay, who was 40 when he died and, like Rivera, was elected into the Hall in his first year of eligibility.