Gotta go with Mo

It's difficult to compare closers from different eras because guys like Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter pitched during a time (1970s and '80s) when they were the bridge to themselves.

They often entered games with men on base, and were forced to get out of that inning and often pitch two more innings to finish the deal.

In other words, they were set-up men and closers wrapped into one.

You definitely can argue that Mariano Rivera has had an easier road to traverse than Gossage, Sutter and other Hall-of-Fame relievers, such as Dennis Eckersley and Rollie Fingers, because the majority of the current Yankee star's 500 reagular-season saves have been of the one-inning variety.

That being said, I believe Mo is the best there ever was when you take into account not only his regular-season record but his post-season stats - which include a mind-boggling, miniscule 0.77 earned run average in 76 appearances.

The bottom line is that no reliever has ever been as dominating as Rivera when the pressure was the greatest - in the playoffs and World Series.

One of the amazing thing about Mo is that he's established himself as the greatest closer of all-time by relying on essentially one pitch - a bat-splintering, cut fastball.

Interestingly, the two teams that have given Rivera the most trouble during his first-ballot Hall-of-Fame career have been the Red Sox and Angels. He has made 44 saves and blown 12 games vs. Boston, and has 18 saves and blown 8 leads vs. Anaheim.

Longtime Rochester Red Wings fans might remember how Rivera was used as a starter by the Yankees Triple-A Columbus affiliate back in the early 1990s. In fact, Rivera once pitched a rain-shortenned, five-inning no-hitter against the Wings.

I keep waiting for Father Time to send Rivera permanently to the showers. Mo, who turns 40 on November 29, isn't as dominating as he was in his prime, but he hasn't slowed down much. Despite his age and off-season shoulder surgery, he has comverted 18 of 19 save attempts and has 39 strikeouts in 30 and 2/3s innings. We should all age so gracefully.

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Downpours and a runaway foreign golfer who few heard of before Sunday made for a very uneventful 2009 Wegmans LPGA. Let's just hope that the 33rd edition wasn't the last to be played at Locust Hill.

As I wrote in this cyberspace last week, LPGA Commish Carolyn Bivens will be voted out of office if Rochester's tour stop goes the way of the Corning Classic and so many other LPGA events.

The bottom line is that the LPGA needs Rochester and Wegmans more than they need the LPGA, so Bivens better not play hardball.

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In my book, Bernie Madoff is not only a scam artist but a murderer. The blood of those people who killed themselves as a result of his malfeasance is on his hands.

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Beth and I are big fans of the Zooperstar mascots. We were rolling in the aisles at Frontier Field Saturday night, watching Clammy Sosa, Bear Bonds and Harry Canary perform their spastic hilarity during breaks from the Red Wings-Scranton/Wilkes-Barre game.

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Here's hoping those rumors about Michael Jackson bequeathing the Beatles' music back to Paul McCartney are true. It was a shame that Jackson felt the rights to the Fab Four's music was more important than his friendship with Sir Paul. There were reports that the King of Pop had planned to meet with McCartney about returning the music rights to McCartney as a peace offering. Sadly, that didn't happen before Michael's premature death.

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If Minnesota's game-plan was to draft point guards back-to-back last week in hopes of trading one of them, then shouldn't the Timberwolves deep thinkers already have had a deal in place? The T-Wolves apparently have received some offers for Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio, who they chose fifth, one slot ahead of SU's Jonny Flynn in the recent NBA draft. Rubio is threatening to play in Europe if he doesn't get the deal he desires.

I thought Flynn handled himself with class after Minnesota's bizarre move. He said he'd be happy to share the floor with another young point guard, etc., despite being as perplexed as the rest of us were.

Makes you hope that Flynn gets traded to an organization that isn't as disorganized.

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Maybe, just maybe, the U.S. men's team is finally ready to be a major player on the world soccer stage. I thought the Americans were about to pull off one of the great upsets in their history after taking that 2-0 lead Sunday. Ah, but it was not to be as Brazil stormed back to win, 3-2.

It's sad that the Brazilians decided to talk trash rather than to give the Americans their due after the match.

My experience covering five Olympics taught me a lot about the lack of sportsmanship throughout the world. I saw similar behavior from the Brazilian women's team after the U.S. defeated them twice in Athens in 2004.

All the world's a stage, and I'm not much of an actor

Friday night, on the main stage at Geva, in front of 500 generous and forgiving theater-goers, I proved once again that as a thespian and a singer, I'm a pretty good sportswriter.

Let's just say that acting is not my forte, and that my warbling is best confined to the privacy of my shower stall.

For reasons that still escape me, I was asked once again to make a fool of myself as part of the "Summer Curtain Call,'' which raises money to support the Geva Theatre Center's education and outreach programs. It's a wonderful cause, and I happily agreed to confront my stage fright because I've been a long-time fan of this cozy, Fenway Park of live theaters. And, deep down, I'm a ham.

This year's production was titled "Les Biz,'' a hilarious spoof of the famous Broadway musical, "Les Miserables."

Mark Cuddy, Geva's artistic director, did a marvelous job rewriting the musical to give it a Rochester theme. And somehow he managed to convince a bunch of Rochester's movers-and-shakers (many of whom, I'm happy to report, are as theatrically challenged as me) to give it the old college try.

Mark warned us on several occasions during rehearsal not to imbibe more than two drinks at the pre-show party in the tent outside the theater. (Several of us aspiring actors were hoping there was no limit placed on the audience. The more dulled their senses, the less bad we would look - and sound.)

For my main scene, I was on stage with my friends Jack Garner and Brother Wease. I was sitting at a cafe table, my character on the prowl for women, and Wease and Garner were talking about me out of ear shot.

They told the audience what a lucky stiff I was to be married to Beth Adams (that part couldn't be more true), and when they were done talking, I sung some altered lyrics from "Lucky Ladies.'' While I did that, Beth, Jennifer Johnson and Norma and Andrea Holland, sauntered onto the stage. Once I finished assaulting the audience's collective ear drums, the four women serenaded and seduced us. I wound up walking off the stage with my real-life wife. (I am indeed a lucky stiff.)

Two years ago, Beth and I participated in the Curtain Call. It was called "R-Town," a take-off on Thornton Wilder's "Our Town,'' and we were married on stage. In a case of life imitating art, the play took place roughly six weeks before we were married for real.

Before the fictitious wedding ceremony in "R-Town,'' Beth and I had to sing Sonny and Cher's classic, "I Got You, Babe.'' Let's just say that, somewhere, Sonny Bono, was spinning in his grave, and Cher was probably demanding that her lawyers serve us with a "cease and desist'' order.

Nick Francesco, who was doing entertainment reports for WHAM radio, wound up writing a hilarious review for the station's web site in which he accurately stated that "singing was committed.''

I'm happy to report that neither Beth nor I were the worst singers on stage that night. By his own admission, that dubious distinction belonged to Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy, who proved to be a great sport while futilely attempting to sing "The Impossible Dream.''

One of the surprising personal sidenotes to all of this, is that I was once so painfully shy that I was deathly afraid of getting up in front of audiences. In fact, it ranked slightly ahead of dying on my list of fears.

I'm still not a great fan of speaking (or, egads!, singing) in front of large crowds, but I'm much more comfortable with it than I used to be.

And, even though I'm no thespian or singer, I had a blast making a fool of myself at Geva Friday night in front of friends and strangers for a good cause.

I owned Bob Feller. Well, sort of.

Rapid Robert Feller can still bring it.

OK, so his 100 mph fastball is now a 40 mph meatball.

But, what the hey, cut the guy some slack. He is, after all, 90 years old. The mere fact he can still deliver strikes from 60 feet, 6 inches off a 10-inch high mound at his age is pretty amazing.

Feller, the oldest living Baseball Hall of Famer, took the hill for two batters in last Sunday's Father's Day game at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown. The author of three major league no-hitters yielded a single to fellow Hall of Famer Paul Molitor and delievered a high-and-tight pitch that prompted former Rochester Red Wing Bobby Grich to charge the mound in mock anger.

Feller then came out of the game to loud applause from the more than 7,000 spectators.

Rapid Robert provided me with one of my favorite baseball-playing moments back in the summer of '77 (that's 1977, not 1877 for all you smart alecks out there. ;-)

I was a 22-year-old sportswriter covering the Mets' Class A, New York-Penn League affiliate in Little Falls, N.Y. for the Little Falls Evening Times, and Feller came to town to sign autographs at the ballpark.

Before the game, he took the mound, resplendent in his old Cleveland Indians uniform, and threw four pitches apiece to a handful of local 'celebrities.' I put that word in single quotes because yours truly was one of the designated celebs.

As a sold-out crowd of 3,000 looked on, I dug in. Feller went into his trademark, high-kicking windup and delivered a batting practice offering straight down the pike. I was so excited to be batting against one of the most dominant pitchers of all-time that I almost cork-screwed myself into the ground while fouling the pitch off my right foot.

The crowd roared with laughter.

"Now, we see why you write about sports rather than play them,'' bellowed one of the leather-lunged spectators, who sounded as if he had already imbibed a few too many Utica Clubs.

I turned as red as a St. Louis Cardinal.

Feller's second serving was every bit as good, and I lined a base hit to right field.

I stroked the third pitch to center and the final offering to left.

Three hits in four at-bats vs. the immortal Bob Feller.

I could now tell my children and grandchildren, and anyone else who would listen that I once had my way with a Hall-of-Fame hurler.

Years later, before interviewing Feller at an oldtimer's game in Buffalo, I mentioned that night in Little Falls to him.

Feller grew defensive.

"Geez,'' he said. "I was 58 at the time and I wasn't throwing hard because I didn't want to embarass anyone.''

I told him I understood that and that I didn't bring it up to be disrespectful. I just wanted to thank him for taking it easy on me and giving me the thrill of a lifetime.

I wasn't bothered by his response. In a way, it was kind of cool, hearing that kind of fire from a guy in his 60s.

And I thought it was even cooler when I read that he had taken the mound as a 90-year-old.

Once a competitor, always a competitor.

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The Chinese government reported that the 2008 Olympics in Beijing turned a profit, not counting the construction costs for the venues and infrastructure. Yeh, right. And nobody was killed during those protests in Tianenmen Squre. In fact, the protests never happened. Just a bunch of propaganda created by the Western media.

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For those soccer fanatics who believe the United States' upset of top-seeded Spain yesterday marks the arrival of their game as a major sport in this country, consider this: The news of Shaq joining LeBron in Cleveland received bigger play, as did several mid-season baseball games. The upset was a step, but the reality is that soccer will never be as big here as it is in most countries beacuse we have too many sporting alternatives already firmly established. That's not meant as a knock, just reality.

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Speaking of Shaq, if he helps LeBron win the NBA championship, the big guy will be able to say that he helped Kobe, Dwayne Wade and King James get their rings. And, therefore, he'll claim that HE, not THEY, was the difference between being a champion or an also-ran.

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David Stern has to be hoping that it's a Lakers-Cavs finals next year. Imagine what a soap opera that will be? You'll have two great story lines: Kobe vs. LeBron and Kobe vs. Shaq.

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I was among the minority of writers who said the Yankees should have kept Joe Torre as their manager. What Joe T has done with the Manny-less Dodgers and what Joe Girardi isn't doing with a stacked roster in the Bronx is just further validation that the Steinbrenner boys and Brian Cashman made the wrong choice.

Fehr strikes out

I was bemused by some of the tributes I read about retiring baseball players' union chief Donald Fehr.

Yes, salaries reached astronomical heights during his tenure, but I thought he failed his clientele miserably on the most important issue - their health. Had he and his cohort in crime - Commissioner Bud Lite Selig - addressed the steroids mess earlier, perhaps we wouldn't have witnessed the tragic, premature death of former National League slugger Ken Caminiti. And who knows how many other tragic, premature baseball deaths we'll be commenting on in the coming years?

Also, the integrity of all those baseball records established and all those baseball awards won wouldn't be in question.

To me, Fehr and Selig were equally complicit in creating the storm cloud that continues to envelope the game.

So, I say, good-bye and good riddance.

Which will be my response when Selig finally leaves office.

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The LPGA can't afford to lose its Rochester tour stop, so I'm thinking something gets worked out this week. The players love the support they receive from this community and there are few sponsors on tour as loyal and generous as Wegmans. I think if LPGA Commish Carol Bivens screws this up, the players will take action and she'll be looking for a new job.

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Michele Wie still doesn't get it. Stop talking about playing on the men's tour and concentrate on finally winning an LPGA event.

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Nancy Lopez remains one of the best ambassadors any sport has ever had.

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For my Facebook friends out there, please join the group, "Put Lou Saban on the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame.'' The second winningest coach in Bills history and the only coach to win a league championship (two American Football League titles) deserves to be immortalized with the rest of the franchise's legends.

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As mentioned several weeks ago in this cyberspace, former SU point guard Jonny Flynn could go as high as fourth in tomorrow's night's NBA draft. Flynn is one of about a dozen players who has been invited by the league to attend the festivities in Madison Square Garden.

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My good friends Michael and Hinda Miller are diehard Mets fans who courageously boarded a bus filled with Yankee fans recently to attend a Subway Series game at the new Yankee Stadium. I thought you would get a kick out of Michael's blog about the experience:

"There were 37 of us who went. Hinda and I constituted 2 of the 6 Mets fans on the bus. The rest were fanatic Yankee fans all decked out in Yankee hats and jackets.''

"To say we were intimidated is an understatement."

"Arrived at our hotel at 2:15 PM. The trip only provided for tickets to the Saturday game, so we went out to have dinner with old friends who live in NYC and who are also (thank God) Mets fans. They have had season tickets shared with 2 other couples for years, but, regrettably, even though the cost would be split between the 3 couples, they simply could not afford the new prices for season tickets at Citifield."

"In any event, we had a marvelous dinner at a small Italian restaurant in Manhatten and then retired to our hotel room to watch the game on TV. Last of the ninth, score 8-7 Mets, 2 out 2 on, K-Rod on the mound for the Mets, A-Rod (sometimes referred to as A-Fraud) at bat. He hits a routine infield pop. Game over, K-Rod doing his victory dance on the mound, A-Rod throwing his bat in disgust, Mets fans everywhere rejoicing, except Castilio muffs the catch. The Yankee players on base, off and running at the crack of the bat, both score, game over, final score Yanks 9 Mets 8.

"Oh, the joys of being a Mets fan. One good thing, the television set in our room was made of sturdy stuff, and survived the barrage of shoes we threw at it.''

"Next day, off to the stadium. and as our bus got us there early we had plenty of time to view the stadium. Hinda, as you know, has 2 artificial knees. The elevators stop at the third deck and you take a ramp to the fourth deck where our seats were located. It is a long ramp and Hinda just was not up to it."

"We went to the box office, told them of our plight and said we would pay the difference for an upgrade to handicapped seating. First, the gentleman at the box office told us we could not upgrade since our tickets were purchased as group tickets. Finally, seeing our distress, he broke down and said he would upgrade to handicapped seating at a cost of only $175 per ticket. We were in disbelief and shock as we walked away."

"Hiding her emotions is not one of my wife’s strong points. Just then a person holding one of those, “Welcome to Yankee Stadium. Can we help you”? signs, saw us and came over. He asked if everything was all right and when Hinda told him what had happened, he said, “wait right here, I’ll be back. 15 minutes later he returned with 2 handicapped seating tickets compliments of the NY Yankees. Points for your side. He then proceeded to take us on a guided tour of the stadium including the museum and personally escorted us to our seats."

"The stadium looked like it was built in Disneyland. All the electronic gadgetry, including the state of the art Jumbotron gave it the feel of an amusement park rather than a baseball stadium. I also missed the voice of the old stadium announcer with his deep voice saying “now batting for the Yankees, Number 52 Bernie Williams, Number 52."

"As an aside, Bernie Williams is an outstanding jazz guitarist and on his most recent CD he is given that same introduction by that announcer, preparatory to Bernie’s instrumental rendition of “Take me out to the ballgame”. His final song on the album is a fabulous rendition of “Glory Days” with Bruce Springsteen doing the vocal. Ah, but I digress.

"The weather in the Big Apple was more than miserable. The disadvantage of handicapped seating is that it is located where there is no protection against the elements. After 4 innings of cheering ourselves hoarse as the Mets piled up a lead, and being chilled and soaked through and through, we decided that our dedication to our beloved Mets was outweighed by our chances of getting pneumonia. Therefore, we adjourned to the Hard Rock Café located inside the stadium, sat next to a lovely young couple, watched the game on one of their many high definition TV’s, and proceeded to substantially reduce the Café’s supply of Nachos and beer, while having the joy of seeing us demolish the pinstripes, 6 – 2."

"This continues our streak of having never seen the Mets lose when we have been at a game in person. Omar Minaya, please take note."

"Sunday, we headed home, tired but happy, until our tour guide, also a fanatic Yankee fan, announced that in the Sunday afternoon game the Mets had failed to score while the Yankees did so 15 times. The announcement was met with uproarious cheering by the Yankee fans and particularly ungracious comments to the 6 Mets fans on the bus. Arrived back in Rochester at 9:15 PM, thus ending our Yankee stadium adventures."

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