The Greatest Sportsman You've Never Heard Of.

Mariano Rivera.

He's a pitcher, a closer in fact. Not just any closer either - he's THE closer. He has 608 career saves, the most ever, including 42 post season.  He doesn't just have the stats either. His peers, the pundits, the fans acknowledge him as the greatest ever.

Mo has achieved all this while maintaining an air of genial calm and humility although he has pitched in the white hot crucible that is New York. Rivera is a  New York Yankee - the epitome of a Yankee.

Rivera had hinted that this would be the last season of his glittering career. All of baseball knew it was coming of course, Rivera is 42.

As a Yankee fan I dared to dream of Mo getting the send-off from the game that he deserved. At Yankee stadium packed with adoring fans - hopefully closing out World Series #28 for the Yankees. There would be fireworks, cheering, tears. Metallica would play Enter Sandman. Mo would go out in style.

But Rivera tore his ACL today participating in warm ups today ahead of a regular season game, against run-of-the-mill Kansas City, far, far from the bright lights of New York, a nothing moment, shagging fly balls. That was all she wrote.

Unless Rivera can write yet another amazing chapter in his story, he won't play again this year or maybe ever again. He may never receive the farewell he deserves. Fans of baseball may never get to say goodbye, to grieve, to let go.

It is a sporting tragedy. There is no silver lining, no up-side, only road grey.

I take away only two things.

The first is that sporting prince or pauper, no one is bigger than the game. Even the greatest cannot dictate the terms and the timing of their exit.

The second is that none of us know when our time in the game will end. Every day in the sun is to be savoured to it's fullest. Revere crossing the white line, savour every opportunity to compete. Great or small, the choice to end it may not be yours.

Welcome

So this is blog post #1. I'm not entirely sure what I will be writing about, only that there are things that are interesting (to me) in my head that I'd like to get out. 

It's not that I don't want them in there, it's more that I'd like to know what they look like written down.

You will probably get some sports related stuff here, an occasional musing about coaching and performance.

If I find out who killed JKF I will reveal them here. But on balance I think that unlikely.