Youthful North Jersey Baseball Players
Receive Pointers From A Legendary Closer
By JR Parachini
For sidelinechatter.com

PINE BROOK – Imagine standing next to New York Yankees legendary relief pitcher Mariano Rivera and throwing a baseball in front of not only your peers, but numerous parents and photographers?

Talk about pressure?

Not feeling any anxiety at all, but simply having a good time was Mike Pedlick, 12, of Butler.

“He looked a lot taller,” said Pedlick, who was one of 120 youth baseball players that took part in a pitching clinic held Saturday morning at the Frozen Ropes training facility on Hook Mountain Road in Pine Brook.

You didn’t have to be a Yankee fan to attend. Pedlick said his favorite team was the Cardinals and that although he doesn’t play for St. Louis anymore that Los Angeles Angels superstar Albert Pujols was still his favorite player.

Still, Pedlick is an admirer of Rivera.

“He’s one of the best pitchers of all time and a great baseball player,” Pedlick said.

The two-hour throwing and pitching clinic included the importance of proper stretching and throwing warm-ups, healthy arm action, injury prevention, pitch counts and innings vs. pitches.

Communicating with the youngsters was almost as challenging for Rivera as trying to strike out Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz with the bases loaded. Now the age of his uniform number – Rivera turned 42 on Nov. 29 – the all-time saves leader with 603 underwent successful throat surgery three days after his birthday on Dec. 2.

“It was polyps on the vocal cord and I was worried about something else (cancer) even though the doctor said that it didn’t look like it,” Rivera said, speaking in public for the first time since his surgery. “I had peace when the results came in and everything was negative (benign).”

Not only Yankees fans from the tri-state area and beyond were relieved when they found out that the No. 1 reliever of all time seems ready to go for what will be his 18 th season in pinstripes.

Rivera, the ultimate relief pitcher, breathed many sighs of relief as well.

“Thank God everything is fine,” Rivera said. “I’m just trying to get ready for spring training.”

With the temperature unseasonably high in the 60s, it felt more like spring was here already and that it was really April 7 rather than Jan. 7.

“Yes, that’s great,” said Rivera, who might even have preferred to been on a real mound outside since the weather was so magnificent.

That time will come soon enough.

On Saturday he very much enjoyed the time he spent indoors teaching kids all aspects of developing healthy throwing arms.

“It was a good event, sharing time with them and showing them the fundamentals,” Rivera said.

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