"He broke a bat. Of course, he did. Mariano Rivera has to hold the record for that, as well, turning ash and maple into splinters.

Chris Parmelee returned to the dugout to fetch a new piece of lumber, and in that time Russell Martin squatted and suggested Rivera return inside with a cutter, just like the 91-mph dart that had blown up the bat to make the count 0-2. But Rivera was on the brink of history for many reasons and one of the most under-appreciated is what a baseball savant he is.

This was a 23-year-old rookie in his 11th major-league game, his first at-bat against a legend. Rivera already had sensed the young lefty hitter backing up off the plate, trying to better deal with the menacing late break of the cutter, trying to defuse one of the great pitching weapons in history. In a private moment about an hour after the game, Rivera would hold his hands eight inches apart to show me how much room he thought that had opened to the other side of the plate."