lifestyle

As this year's baseball season got underway, New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, who hails from the fishing community of Puerto Caimito in La Chorrera, said that sometime in mid-season he would have an announcement about whether he would retire at the end of this year or be back for more baseball. The hard-throwing right-hander, who makes the ball do strange things that vex hitters, typically starts a season slowly and gets better as it progresses and becomes well nigh unhittable as the playoffs get underway.

Before a May 3 game with the Kansas City Royals in Kansas City, Rivera was shagging flies in the outfield during batting practice, as he often has done, when his cleats caught on the border between the turf and the warning track. He twisted his knee and went down hard. The electronic scans immediately detected a torn anterior cruciate ligament and a broken meniscus. In his 18th year in the Major Leagues and 42 years old, unless he heals miraculously quickly he's out for the season. Even if he does prove to have most unusual healing powers, the Yankees would never risk putting him on the mound again this year.

In his first statements to the press, Rivera said that he'd just have to see whether and how this injury heals and make a decision based on that. A day later, he predicted that he would be back pitching for the Yankees in 2013.

We shall see. As baseball's all-time leader in saves, with 12 All Star appearances and a 2.21 Earned Run Average in a career spent playing for baseball's richest franchise, Rivera doesn't really need the money that he'd get from continuing his playing days. A deeply religious man, he spends much of his time on church-related activities and has said that after baseball he'd like to be an Evangelical minister --- so he does not appear to be one of those athletes who will have an identity crisis and be emotionally adrift without a clue about what to do after his playing days are over.

We don't have too many clues about how well Rivera might heal because he has never had a serious injury before. Nor has he lost any of his effectiveness as he has aged --- quite to the contrary, if one wants to judge by his record. We do know that he has avoided play in the World Baseball Classic, pleading that he needs the entire off-season to rest. His usual slow starts in spring training and April tend to support that position, annoying as it may be to some fans here who would like to see him play for a Panamanian national team.

If a comeback doesn't happen, we can be reasonably certain that Rivera will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame the first time he's on the ballot. He will be the first Panamanian to be so honored, and will always be a national hero here.