This is the face of pain.  It sears.  It takes your breath away.  You gasp and clutch at your injury, your head white-hot, confused.  Minutes later, the pain subsides just enough to allow the injured to understand: uh-oh, this is bad — I really did it this time.

The other day, Mo went down like a sack, freakishly, doing something he loved to do — the simple, boyish, exhiliarating act of shagging a fly ball in the outfield.

Every kid that’s ever picked up a bat, glove and ball has had this fantasy, a fantasy Mo replayed in his mind before every game he played, as part of his pre-game ritual.  Here’s the fantasy, which echoes through your mind with the sound of your favorite baseball announcer (and mine was Phil Rizzuto): “Holy cow, he hit that ball a ton…Rivera goes back, back, back — and he MAKES THE PLAY on the warning track…”

It’s such a pure, simple act when done by someone with such grace and athleticism as Mariano Rivera.  Guys like Mo, like Bernie in his prime, they moved like gazelles and made it look effortless.  According to reports, newspaper guys would tease Mo upon occasion, asking: “Who’s the best all-time Yankee outfielder?”

“You know..” Mo would say, an impish smile on his face.

“Who?” they’d ask again.

“Me, man!” he say.

And now comes the hard part.  Right now, he’s no doubt on pain meds and he’ll go to New York for further testing with the surgeon who did his shoulder and they’ll look at the pictures and maybe do another MRI, or MRI with contrast, light his leg up like a Christmas tree with that strange chemical-smelling dye that makes you want to puke, while you’re in that tube with your headphones on, but still hearing that pounding MRI DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH that seems to go on forever.

And then, there are the pre-surgery rituals and you’re led into that workshop with all tiles and monitors and stainless steel and it’s cold and the AC/DC is blasting over the speakers (why surgeons like to hear headbanger music while they operate is beyond me) and you count backwards from 100 and the next thing you know, you’re coming to and you’re in the recovery room and you blink and blink again as you focus.

And at that very point, the easy stuff is over because the very next day you start the rehab and you see how stiff your leg is, like a new baseball glove that’s got to be broken in.  It’s natural to despair.

I expect Rivera will shine, because he has heart, as only a Real New Yorker does. 
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It’s hard work, my friends, coming back from an operation, even those that the docs say, oh-so-cavalierly are “routine.”  Yeah, routine for THEM.  Trust me: for the patient, it is HARD WORK.

No matter what happens from the point of regaining consciousness in the recovery room, on — because the technical aspect, the surgery itself, should go smoothly — Mo controls his fate.  He’s a superbly conditioned athlete who has defied time, but he is 42, after all and he does not want to get back to pitching slow-pitch softball in the local bar league.  He wants to pitch major league baseball at the highest level, for the New York Yankees.  “OK” is not good enough, not for a pitcher like Mo.

If this is, in fact, the end of Mo’s career, then it’s perfect, almost Biblical. He’s had his time to shine, as no one else has — and who amongst us can say that?

The morals to this story?
— respect your gifts and use them with honor;
— take pride in your work, and let it give you joy;
— know that nothing lasts forever;
— age with dignity and grace, while retaining the enthusiasm of youth;
— use your gifts and your assets to help others, who are in need

Mo knows this and more.  He came up from nothing, in a small fishing town in Panama. Now, he is a worldwide sports icon.  But Real New Yorkers know what Mo is all about.

The winning was great, but only one part of who the man is. I salute him in whatever he decides to do next, and look forward to the next chapter in Mariano Rivera’s life.

Rest assured, it will be lived with heart.