Posted on 06/10/2013 11:47:20 AM PDT by nickcarraway
On the mound, God is always with Mariano Rivera, in victory and defeat. But baseball is a boys game, not a calling. And now, as he prepares to hang up his cleats, the greatest closer baseball has ever seen is embarking on his real mission.
As anyone who follows baseball knows, Mariano Rivera has built his career on one pitch. A cut fastball, or cutter, it travels at 90 or 92 miles an hour, and then, a few feet before it reaches home plate, it moves half a foot off course, a trick of physics that looks like telekinesis. Riveras cutter is virtually unhittable, by consensus and by the numbers, but the wasteland of broken bats that litter the plate when he is on the mound is all the proof anyone needs. A Rivera inning has thus been compared to a horror movie: The excitement is sharpened, not dulled, by the fact that everyonethe players, the ticket holders, and Rivera himselfknows exactly whats coming. Consistency and predictability may be the dullest of virtues, but in Rivera, the anchor reliever for a nearly two-decade Yankees dynasty who will retire at the end of this season at 43, consistency itself is manifest as a superpower.
Three months into his final season, Riveras hagiography is already being written. He has, for seventeen years, been the Yankees closer, the specialist who arrives in the ninth inning to protect a tight lead, and at this he is better than anyone else who has ever played the game. With 21 saves so far this season, he is pitching as well as he ever has, at an age when other ballplayers have long since withered, and after a long winter recovering from surgery for a torn ACL, an injury that cut short his 2012 season and has ruined many players much younger than he. His teammates speak of him as a giant, and they express gratitude for the privilege of merely being able to walk in the clubhouse where he has walked; atop the Yankees Olympus, populated by Ruth, DiMaggio, Gehrig, and Mantle, theres already a name tag on Riveras throne. Sportswriters see him as a mystery, for while other closers have had brilliant seasons, even stretches of three or four, no one else has ever been as good for as long, not nearly. In trying to explain his unprecedented and ruthless two decades of dominance, theyll cite Riveras natural athleticism and the simplicity of his mechanics and theyll mention the advantages of having been tutored and coddled during his long career by the rich, paternalistic Yankees organization. Rivera acknowledges these things with gratitudeall true, he says. But in his view, his greatness has no earthly source.
Everything I have and everything I became is because of the strength of the Lord, and through him I have accomplished everything, he tells me as we sit shoulder to shoulder in the Yankees dugout on a temperate, breezy spring day last month. Not because of my strength. Only by his love, his mercy, and his strength. It is the first of several conversations about God I have with Rivera, over several weeks, and in each meeting I find myself struck by how eager he is to put baseball aside and speak openly, and at length, about his faith. Even as Rivera denies that his talent belongs to him, I steal a look at his magic right arm. You dont own your gifts like a pair of jeans, he says.
By that reasoning, I venture, you might say that even the cutter doesnt belong to you.
It doesnt, he answers, nodding emphatically. It doesnt. He could give it to anyone he wants, but you know what? He put it in me. He put it in me, for me to use it. To bring glory, not to Mariano Rivera, but to the Lord.
Sportswriters often discount athletes religiosity as a sideshow, and the secular viewers of cable TV may prefer the bloodless scrutiny of slo-mo video than to give credit to divine causes, but the full story of Riveras career is unmistakably a story about faith. On the mound, Rivera is implacable, a warrior with the Buddhas face. But talking about faith with Rivera is like opening a bottle; years of feeling come out. He speaks less like a theologian than like an enthusiastic believer, channeling all his considerable charisma, curiosity, and preternatural seriousness into the conveyance of passion. His is not a questioning faith but a conviction, invulnerable to attacks from skeptics and doubters, and so his answers to existentially vexing questions can sound to some uncomfortably neat. But Rivera isnt worried about rationalist complaints because it is in certitude that he finds his strength.
Baseball is full of nutters and head cases, and closers are among the nuttiest of them allthe games wildest men and drama queens, the gloaters and the long-haired fist pumpers. Closers employ all kinds of mental tricks to shut down the voices in their heads: They pretend theyre back in the minors where nothing really counts, or they visualize blondes behind home plate. But Rivera doesnt need tricks. His eye is on a bigger prize, which is to say Heaven, and that has a way of placing more quotidian anxieties about stats, standings, and contract deals into perspective. At the end! he says with so much suppressed excitement I think he might explode. Thats where I want to become a giant. Thats where it counts. It doesnt matter now. The certain knowledge that God is at his side, even on the mound, gives Rivera a kind of mental equilibrium that most players (and most people) can only yearn for, a profound mixture of fatalism and personal responsibility best captured by the AA mantra, the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Rivera likes to wineverybody does, he saysand he believes that giving his life to Christ puts him on the right team. As long as you cross the [finish] line with the Lord, youre a winner.
Rivera, in the bullpen of the old Yankee Stadium, 2006. (Photo: Martin Schoeller) His faith does not relieve the pitcher of his responsibilities; he is no puppet, and God isnt calling the pitches, Rivera tells me, laughing at the suggestion. The fact that his gifts come from God increases his obligation to honor them with the hard work and discipline for which he is famous, he says. When Rivera botches a save, its his failurebut its also part of Gods mysterious plan. You have to do your part, he says. And he will do everything else. You have to be there. Sometimes it doesnt go your way, but it doesnt mean that hes not in control. Sometimes it doesnt go my way. I have lost the World Series. I have lost games in the regular season. I have lost games in the playoffs.
Its a two-tiered system, in which God controls ultimate outcomes from Heaven while down in the stadium Rivera takes perfect aim to win. Too many people claim a religious faith only when its convenient, Rivera says, when they want something or when theyre in a particular bind. When youre talking about the Lord, its your creator. Everything. Your lord. Your master. Your owner. Your everything. I do believe that if you call God our Lord, it means he rules over you. And sometimes we dont let him do that. We dont let that happen. We call him Lord, yes, but on circumstance. Not on everything. And how come if hes our Lord, we dont allow him to rule over everything? The question is rhetorical. Sometimes, we want to take charge, and thats when everything goes wrong. I can tell you. When you think, Oh, I have it. Im in control. Guess what? You are not.
God allows me to perform without putting too much stress on myself, says Riveras teammate and fellow Christian Andy Pettitte. For Rivera, more crucially, his faith in a perfect, ordered universe permits him to fail. Jorge Posada, the former Yankee catcher who is one of Riveras closest friends, believes that Riveras mental agility in the face of disappointment is the best evidence of the strength of his faithbetter than the tattered Bible he carries with him always or the Bible verse (Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me) the folks at Nike have embroidered discreetly on his cleats (so discreetly that even up close I have to strain to see it). People have to fail, and through his faith hes able to do that a lot better than most, Posada told me. Its so hard in the game of baseball, you are failing a lot. Hes a freak of nature. Hes able to put his failures behind him so quick. Posada is thinking of two spectacular failures in particular, when Rivera lost the lead in the fourth game of the 1997 division series against the Indians and blew the seventh game of the 2001 World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. I asked him, How did you bounce back from 97, how did you bounce back from 2001? Posada marveled. I cant do that. I still think about the mistakes we do in life.
Rivera loves the Gospel, but when it comes to baseball, he takes an Old Testament view. If winning is an honor to God, then perhaps creating a paralyzing fear in opponents is an even greater one. In the Yankee dugout, I ask Rivera what part of the Bible he likes the best. He answers immediately: He relates to the Hebrew Bibles King David, the poor shepherd boy who saved his people by throwing a rock at the head of a monster. He was, Rivera says in his quiet, Spanish-inflected voice, a killer. David grew up into the rich and powerful King of Israel, a man who was a lover, a poet, and a warrior, who pleased God, the Bible says, even as he failed to live up to his commandments. This was a man, yes, who made a lot of mistakes, but he always knew who his source was, Rivera tells me. David fell in love with Bathsheba as he spied her bathing and then, wanting her, sent her husband, Uriah, into battle, knowing he would meet his death. The illicit union produced a son, and God expressed his disapproval by making that baby sick. When the baby was ailing, the great king wept and fasted. But when he died, David stopped grieving, to the surprise of his servants, got up, and went back to work. The baby dies, Rivera says. And King David? Wakes up. Wash it off. Shave. Eat. Get ready. And move forward. Never look back. Never ask once again.
(Photo: Martin Schoeller) I ask Rivera how it felt to lose the 2001 series, and he answers that God was in charge that day as he is on all others. I did my best. I did everything within my power. I did everything within my power to win that game for us. Guess what? Didnt happen. And you think Im going to start like a child, Oh oh oh, I be crying? No, I did my best. My best wasnt enough that day. I looked my boss into his eyes, and I said, Boss, I did my best and my best wasnt enough today. I can sleep comfortable and move forward.
From his spot in the shade, Rivera contemplated the ancient story of David as he gazed upon the field, where his teammates were beginning batting practice. He had to go to workbosses matter to him, as do punctuality and politeness.
There are those who feel that Americas pastime is like a religion, its parks, cathedrals, and its players like actors in a Passion play. I dont think that way, Rivera says. You get paid to play this game, and you have to produce, otherwise you wont get paid. So it is a job. When asked about his impending retirement, a crisis point in the life of any pro athlete, he says, I cant wait.
When the season ends, after what he hopes will be his sixth World Series win, Rivera will devote himself to working in an actual churchhis church, the wreck of a long-ago Presbyterian congregation purchased from the City of New Rochelle in 2011 and renovated, he says, at a cost of $2.5 million. It doesnt look like much nowa stone shell with a shingled roof surrounded by heaps of dirtbut Rivera says it will be open for business in a month or two. New stained-glass windows were recently installed, he says, and inside the sanctuary, that church is glowing, a kind of yellow-goldish color because the sun hits the stained glass and it looks, oh my God, fantastic. The church is named Refugio de Esperanza, or Refuge of Hope. Clara, Riveras wife, will be its pastor. She is not yet ordained, but then that is not so unusual for a church like this one.
The Riveras already have a Christian-Pentecostal congregation waiting in the wings, a group of several dozen people who have been worshipping weekly at their home in Purchase for years, an organic outgrowth of an informal Bible study they started with a few other couples. My house is kind of small, he explains. We only fit like 50 people, 60 people tops. Forty, average. We have whites, we have blacks, we have Hispanics. Well have all kinds. It dont matter. As long as you love Christ, we in it. And if you dont love him, we will work with you so we put you on the right path. During the season, Rivera often worships in a Sunday-morning Baseball Chapel, led in the clubhouse by pastor George McGovern, but he comes to Claras services when he can, according to friends, sitting in the back row with his hand in the air, tears streaming down his cheeks.
But when Rivera says church, as in My plan after baseball is to focus on church, he means something much bigger than a new space to pray in. What he has in mind is a brotherhood (and sisterhood) of Christ, a spiritual and material outreach without boundaries, giving help to whoever needs it wherever they are, in the form of school supplies, haircuts, hot meals, Thanksgiving turkeys, toys at Christmas, college scholarships, bed sheets and bath soap for Sandy victims, and on and on. (The Mariano Rivera Foundation already donates between $500,000 and a million dollars each year.) He wants to keep funding church start-ups, as hes already done in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, California, and Florida, not to mention New York. In Panama, we have done I dont know how many, he says. Here, he wants to buy the building next to the church in New Rochelle and make it into an after-school program for at-risk kids. He and Clara are even talking about starting a seminary. Refuge of Hope, then, is more than a bricks-and-mortar retirement hobby; its a dream of a network of congregations and charities and pastors of the kind that used to be called, quaintly, a denomination.
This is not as outlandish as it sounds. Rivera is part of a huge, transnational religious movement, in which Latinos are turning away from religion in its institutionalized, hierarchical forms, especially Catholicism, and embracing the more intimate, do-it-yourself Pentecostal church. Like the vibrant tent revivals of the nineteenth-century American frontier, this is a grassroots phenomenon, fueled by transient populations of migrant workers, who are seeking a more emotional and immediate connection with God than whats on offer in more established congregations. House churches like the Riveras are commonplace, and so are women pastors. Pentecostalism puts its focus on the Holy Spirit, the part of the Trinity that dwells within people and acts like an inner guide; its an emotional faith. At a typical Hispanic Pentecostal church you wont see congregants passively listening to a minister sermonize, and you probably wont see the lyrics to a hymn printed on a drop-down video screen. Youll see lots of people underlining in their Bibles, and when they sing, theyll be on their feet, praying with their whole body. Pentecostals tend to believe in healing, visions, and miracles, and some describe being baptized by the Holy Spirit, known as speaking in tongues, which looks to an outsider like nothing more than a protracted orgasm, with keening and babbling and uncontrolled shuddering or twitching. I havent been baptized with the Holy Spirit, Rivera says. But I have seen it, and its beautiful. Thats what I want.
Rivera hears the spirit talking to him all the time, he saysin dreams, in songs, and through the Bible. He also hears the spirit in prayer. When he reaches the mound, he always turns his back to the catcher for a minute and gazes down at the ball in his hand, and at that moment, hes praying that God watch not only me but my teammates. That no one get hurt, he says. The key is your heart, Rivera says. God dont hear words. Here he brings his hands up near his ears and, with his famous long fingers, makes jabbering mouth motions. He goes direct to your heart and sees what is there.
At one of our meetings, as sports reporters milled about the Yankees dugout, we found ourselves discussing Saint Augustines Confessionsthe testimonial, written around 400 A.D., of a wayward young man who, weeping under a fig tree, hears a voice commanding him to read the Bible, a moment that changes him forever. Saint. Saint, Rivera repeated. What is that? Rivera was pretending not to understand: He has a reformers disdain for Catholicisms hierarchical embellishments, including its catalogue of saints, which, he says, encourages men to worship other men. When I read the Bible, I read that the Lord is jealous. Hes alone. But when Augustine wrote his Confessions, I say, the Catholic Church was the only game in town. No, Rivera says. There was a church before that: the church of Jesus.
Like many Evangelicals, Rivera knows the Bible backward and forward, but he doesnt use it like a hammer. His presence in the clubhouse is light and teasingprotective of younger pitchers, flirtatious with older women, warm with the numerous Yankees serfs who hang around waiting to fetch water and pack bagsand he sees it as his job to guide others, not to force them. Hes not one of those people, says Posada, who is Catholic. If you sit down with Mariano for a long time, youre going to hear a lot of quotes and a lot of things that the Bible says, but he doesnt preach. He does, however, believe the Bible is the Word of God, which makes him inflexible on certain matters. According to the second Book of Samuel, David had a best friend, a soul mate, whose name was Jonathan and whose love he treasured passing the love of women. Did you know, I asked Rivera during our first interview in the dugout, that some modern scholars argue that David and Jonathan may have been lovers?
Lovers, meaning, lovers what? he asked.
Sexually, I said.
Rivera threw his head back and laughed. Well, he said, the Bible doesnt say that. Men can love each other, he said, looking out at his teammates on the field, and even lay down their lives for each other, without it being a sexual thing. On the question of homosexuality in sports, he gave a politicians answer, accommodationist-sounding but firm in its conviction. You want to be that, hey, you be it. If thats going to make you happy, you be it. I do respect that. But I dont share it, he said. If its the right thing to dothe Bible doesnt tell me that.
The next day, the locker room was dim and quiet, and I found Rivera sitting on a folding chair, tying his shoes. From behind, he looked like a movie still: the shaved head, the lanky frame, the No. 42 emblazoned on his back. When he turned around, he gave me his famous high-school-boyfriend smile, shook my hand, then ran off somewhere. I dawdled around his locker and wondered what it must be like, for a man like him, in a locker room like this, full of egotists and sinners, some of whom likely tolerate his saintliness and the adulation of the press only because of his extraordinary human ability. About steroids, Rivera says, God has given you everything you need.
Rivera believes, along with most conservative Evangelicals, that the only way to Heaven is through Jesus. But what about the Jews, the atheists, the hedonist rookie, the lapsed journeyman, and the agnostic reporters who worship Rivera but not his God? Within minutes, Rivera unexpectedly came bouncing back and I ask: Would a loving God really condemn good people for not believing in him?
God doesnt accept excuses, he says. Someway, sometime, youve heard about Jesus. Even if you live in China, you would have heard. The Bible says were all going to be judged. About his teammates in particular, Rivera says, Christ came for the sinners, not for the saved. You dont go to the doctor if youre healthy.
Every converted Christian has a once-was-lost-now-am-found narrative, and Rivera is no exception. Most stories about his early years draw on a kind of romanticized poverty, in which he learns from his father working on a fishing boat about respect and determination and in his spare time plays baseball, using a mitt improvised from a milk carton (in one version I heard, from a minor-league friend, it was the crushed cardboard from a case of beer). In truth, back then, Rivera loved soccer much more than baseball and when asked recently could not name a single major-league pitcher from his boyhood.
Rivera hints at a dark period during his late teenage years, about which he will say very little: I was doing the wrong things. It was just bad. If I kept going that way, I would have been dead, he says. The crowd I was hanging with wasnt the right crowd. And with that, Ill leave it like that. It was around that time his cousin Vidal introduced him to the idea of an unmediated faith, which spoke to him in a way his childhood Catholicism had not. He started talking about Christ and relationship and what he did for us on the Cross, and I said, Wow. I was intrigued. I started reading the Bible and searching and find out who Christ was and is.
When he was 20, the Yankees signed Rivera for $3,000, and he commenced the vagabond life of a minor-league player, living in Tampa, Greensboro, and Columbus over the next five years and traveling home to Panama in the winter to see his family and Clara, whom he knew from childhood and married in 1991. In those years, Rivera may have had his distractions, but to those around him, he seemed already completely focused on getting to the major leagues. Wherever Rivera sat on the bus was the quiet section, remembered his occasional roommate in the minors, Ron Frazier, and when the other guys went out after games to drink and play pool and chase girls, Rivera stayed in and got his rest. I was one of those guys who drank beer and played pool, says Frazier, now a high-school teacher on Long Island. He would talk to me. He would say, You got to keep your priorities straight. I just knew then and there he had it right.
Nothing about Riveras major-league start, however, portended his awesome career. He had an operation on his elbow in 1992, and a full recovery was uncertain. And even though his fastball gained tremendous velocity in 1995, reaching around 95 miles an hour, he was far from a sure thing. He was called up that spring, when he was already 25 years old, an age at which many pitchers are beginning a decline they can only forestall with pitcherly savvy. Another shabby outing by another young pitcher, wrote Jack Curry in the New York Times in June. Even Riveras voice comes down through the decades as wavering, the sound of a rookie trying to act brave. When I got in there, I had to be in control. I tried to be in control, he told reporters in September after facing off against the As. Today, Rivera has disdain for the word trying, a verb he thinks indicates a less-than-total commitment. During one of our conversations, I was fiddling with my voice recorder and apologized for making him wait. Dont say, Sorry, sorry, he told me, teasing. Just get it done.
In 1996, he earned a permanent spot in the Yankees bullpen, and the team won the World Series; by the next year, he was working full time as their closer. But off the field, life was a work-in-progress. He still had not given himself to God. The commitment level as a younger man sometimes is a little bit different, a little bit difficult, says Pettitte, who was Riveras peer in the minors and has watched his faith mature. Sometimes youre a little more distracted and not as focused on what you want your walk to be. And maintaining a long-distance relationship with his wife and children (the oldest of three sons, Mariano Jr., was born in 1994) was tough on the family. While he played in the minorsand for his first several years in the majorsRivera thought of himself as living in Panama with a job that took him frequently out of town, almost like the migrant workers who share his faith. For Clara, coming from a close-knit Panamanian family, Westchester, and the world of professional baseball, was an entirely alien universe. I wont say she was lonely, Rivera says. But we didnt have no one here. No one.
One day, soon after Riveras debut, from their apartment in New Rochelle, Clara reached out to a woman shed heard about through relatives, a leader in a Pentecostal denomination called the Church of God of Prophecy. This woman and her husband became Claras American support system, and soon Marianos as wellthey prayed together, read the Bible, and even helped the Riveras set up their house. Rivera calls them his spiritual parents; the wife he calls Mami. It was Mami who eventually brought Mariano to God. It was personal. Beautiful, Rivera says. Today, whenever the Riveras go on vacation, they do so with 40-odd people, including parents both biological and spiritual. Im always with my family, Rivera says. Where I go, my family goes.
We are sitting together during our final meeting, once again huddled in the Yankee dugout. I had come to see these conversations as a kind of Bible study, but this time, he seemed distracted. It was nearly a hundred degrees in the sun, and the season had settled into the long, hot stretch when opening day is long behind you and the playoffs are still more than a hundred games away. Im tired, he said as he scooched up next to me on the bench, then inched rightward to get a better view of the opposition while they took their practice swings.
When I ask him what brought him to God, he says that, like everyone, hes vulnerable to temptation. When were still alive, when were still breathing, we will go through temptations, he told me. The thing is how were going to get through it. Again, we all fail. We all fall short. But his view of his own born-again experience isnt transactional: A person gives himself to God because he understands at his deepest core that he needs salvation. Lord, here I am is how he describes the moment. Im a sinner. Im a sinner. Guess what. Im surrendered to you. I dont want to do it no morewhatever Im doing that doesnt please you, take it away from me. I surrender to you. Come, dwell in me.
Rivera found his cutter shortly after being born again, and this, he says, is no coincidence. The story has been told before, but it bears repeating here. In the spring of 1997, Rivera was a conventional fastball pitcher, hurling heat straight at the plate and mixing that up with breaking and off-speed pitches. But during pitching practice one day, he suddenly found that he could not make his fastball stay on course. He had been having a tough spring, he says, thinking too much and feeling pressure to always be perfect. And here was this ball, out of nowhere, seemingly with a life of its own, and Rivera completely unable to control it. The bullpen catcher thought he was messing around, and the mystified pitching coach worked with Rivera for weeks, trying to help him get the ball to settle down. But he couldnt. Or it wouldnt. And so finally, according to Sports Illustrated, Rivera said, Im tired of working at this, lets let it happen. To me, he said only this: In God is purposes.
As part of his farewell tour, Rivera has been visiting with small groups of people connected with opposing ball clubs on the roadthanking hot-dog vendors and the group-sales guy for working hard. I saw him do this at Citi Field, on Memorial Day, before the first game of the Yankees series against the Mets. Its an honor and a privilege, he began.
For seventeen years, Rivera has been perhaps baseballs humblest hero, always thanking God in an understated way. Hes not in the news for beating up his model girlfriend or falling out with his agentin fact, hes hardly in the news at all. He doesnt bad-mouth the people who write him checks. He has off days, but never slumps.
And now, in this victory lap, his discomfort with the spotlight shows. It is easier for him to be historys greatest closer than it is for him to reveal himself, because he sees that making a display of his humility puts that all-important humility in doubt. Having lived in New York for nearly twenty years, he knows, on some level, that the fans, and even his teammates, are drawn more to his superstardom than they are to his innermost thoughts; the beliefs are of interest only because hes so great. I dont want people to think that I do [church work] because I want attention, he told me. I dont ever want that. I do it because it comes from my heart and not for the publicity.
At Citi Field that day, the event had a staged feeling; it was heartfelt but also for show. The Mets returned the honor the following evening, asking him to throw out the first pitchan exceptional, gracious gesture for an active pitcher on an opposing team. Later that night, he entered the game to pitch for real, with the Yankees ahead 1-0 in the ninth. The lowly Mets struck quickly, getting three consecutive hits off Rivera and stealing the game. It was the worst outing of Riveras career. And it was humbling. It may have been part of Gods plan, but with reporters later that night, the pitcher took full responsibility.
A part of him I was not aware, I respect him even more...
The Riveras already have a Christian-Pentecostal congregation waiting in the wings, a group of several dozen people who have been worshipping weekly at their home in Purchase for years, an organic outgrowth of an informal Bible study they started with a few other couples. My house is kind of small, he explains. We only fit like 50 people, 60 people tops. Forty, average. We have whites, we have blacks, we have Hispanics. Well have all kinds. It dont matter. As long as you love Christ, we in it. And if you dont love him, we will work with you so we put you on the right path. During the season, Rivera often worships in a Sunday-morning Baseball Chapel, led in the clubhouse by pastor George McGovern, but he comes to Claras services when he can, according to friends, sitting in the back row with his hand in the air, tears streaming down his cheeks.
But when Rivera says church, as in My plan after baseball is to focus on church, he means something much bigger than a new space to pray in. What he has in mind is a brotherhood (and sisterhood) of Christ, a spiritual and material outreach without boundaries, giving help to whoever needs it wherever they are, in the form of school supplies, haircuts, hot meals, Thanksgiving turkeys, toys at Christmas, college scholarships, bed sheets and bath soap for Sandy victims, and on and on. (The Mariano Rivera Foundation already donates between $500,000 and a million dollars each year.) He wants to keep funding church start-ups, as hes already done in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, California, and Florida, not to mention New York. In Panama, we have done I dont know how many, he says. Here, he wants to buy the building next to the church in New Rochelle and make it into an after-school program for at-risk kids. He and Clara are even talking about starting a seminary. Refuge of Hope, then, is more than a bricks-and-mortar retirement hobby; its a dream of a network of congregations and charities and pastors of the kind that used to be called, quaintly, a denomination.
This is not as outlandish as it sounds. Rivera is part of a huge, transnational religious movement, in which Latinos are turning away from religion in its institutionalized, hierarchical forms, especially Catholicism, and embracing the more intimate, do-it-yourself Pentecostal church. Like the vibrant tent revivals of the nineteenth-century American frontier, this is a grassroots phenomenon, fueled by transient populations of migrant workers, who are seeking a more emotional and immediate connection with God than whats on offer in more established congregations. House churches like the Riveras are commonplace, and so are women pastors. Pentecostalism puts its focus on the Holy Spirit, the part of the Trinity that dwells within people and acts like an inner guide; its an emotional faith.
Ping for later
My guess ... an unbalanced baseball ... along the spitball line
Nuts!! I’m a life long Red Sox fan and have detested Mariano for years because of what he has done to my Red Sox. Now I find out late he is a brother. All those years wasted!!
So, every pitcher that uses it is cheating? Huh?
Good article. Thanks for posting.
s & w, ping....
Amen.
Nice to hear this sorta thing.
Yep!
Baseball rule 3.02 ... "No player shall intentionally discolor or damage the ball by rubbing it with soil, rosin, paraffin, licorice, sand-paper, emery-paper, or other foreign substance. PENALTY -- The unpire shall demand the ball and remove the offender from the game. ... "
I think he was referring to the cutter in general, no necessarily a doctored baseball.
And the same media tried to destroy Tim Tebow for his beliefs.
I didn’t know I was cheating those years I pitched...
Maybe you misunderstand. A “cutter” is not a doctored ball. It refers to the way the pitch “cuts” one way as it approaches the plate. It’s how you hold it and cause it to spin allowing the raised laces to create a specific aerodynamic action. It’s like a curve ball or slider - it’s how the ball spins that makes it move. Not the way the ball is doctored.
Now that you've confessed, your penance will be umpiring Little League games for twenty years.
Remember when pitches were called a drop, a screwball, a forkball, palmball, etc.?
Regarding his choice of "denomination", a few years ago a couple members of my family did a mission trip to Chile where there's a Pentecostal camp called Centro Shalom. The Pentecostal Church is growing leaps and bounds in Latin America and these people in particular maintain very good relations with at least a few other Protestant groups in the USA.
> Clara, Riveras wife, will be its pastor.
Broken right there.
I’m a shortstop for my senior softball team and due to the velocity with which I throw along with a crooked middle finger that puts a weird spin on the ball, my throws to first base will usually break from left to right about two feet. Guys catching the ball for the first time aren’t used to the ball breaking like it does and are caught off guard and almost have the ball go off the tip of their gloves........
I thought hell was reserved for sinners AFTER they died?
It's not quite Hell ... and you end up winning ... especially in character.
PLAY BALL !!!
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