Love or hate the New York Yankees, you have to admit that Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer of all-time. Rivera, 42, was already putting together what could have been a swan song season to close out his career, as he’s recorded 5 saves in 6 chances, with a 1-1 record and 2.16 ERA. Instead, he could be going out more like a dying duck, as he’ll miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL.

Before yesterday’s 4-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals, Rivera was shagging fly batting practice balls in center field, like he usually does, and on a deep fly ball by Jayson Nix, Rivera turned awkwardly and twisted his knee (video after the jump). A lot of people might ask, “Why the hell was the 41-year old closer shagging fly balls in center field?” And the answer is: “Because Mo can apparently do whatever he wants.”

An outstanding athlete, Rivera fancies himself a credible center fielder, even pleading with Girardi to allow him to play center in a game before he retires. Girardi said he wanted to accommodate Rivera, but was too worried about an injury to let him go through with it.

Rivera has been a fixture in center field during batting practice, along with the other pitchers. But he always chased fly balls with more zeal and effort. (Via the New York Times)

And so begins a year of sports writers wondering if Rivera’s career is over, which we won’t know until he recovers, obviously. What we do know is that a guy like Rivera deserves better. If he’s going to blow out his knee, at least make it while he’s rescuing a basket of puppies from Skeletor. At least that’s how I’d like to go.

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I’d like to preface this story by saying I’m a diehard Cleveland Indians fan. I’ve been to Yankee Stadium to watch the Tribe play, and when I went I wore my C hat and my jersey with a big red “INDIANS” across the front. When the Tribe scored, I cheered. When the Yankees scored, I booed. At no point was beer thrown on me, and at no point was I kicked in the face and knocked over multiple rows of steps.

Here’s my theory: I am not a dumb asshole. Also, I like a team that never wins.

Per the fine cats at Deadspin:

Things heat up around the 1:15 mark when alleged Red Sox fan punches someone and a regular slobber knocker ensues. Alleged Red Sox fan clearly got the worst of it as she took a boot to the face and tumbled back over the seats. Tipster Dave informs us that Alleged Red Sox fan was taking abuse most of the day and eventually had enough. This is the result.

Please enjoy that result, which lands somewhere between “tandem skydiving” and “being elbow-deep in Kate Upton” on the list of great (and somehow horrible) moments of which I’ll never be a part:

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Ozzie Guillen is never at a loss for exciting post-game quotes. Actually he’s always at a loss, but that’s what makes these so good. I almost cherry-picked “no energy in the dugout and a horsesh** approach at the plate” or “it’s going to be a f**king long-ass God damn July”, but I think this response late in the interview sums things up perfectly.

“A lot of people say sh*t I talk sh*t because I have to talk sh*t. No I don’t. I talk sh*t because I have [bup bup] what I see, that’s all it I see. Very bad. Very bad.”

Of course, that’s paraphrased. He might’ve been saying something nice.

To his credit, Guillen and the White Sox did have a terrible night. The Chicago White Sox fell 2-1 in 11 innings to the basement-dwelling Kansas City Royals, and during the eighth inning a foul ball doing God’s work hit Ozzie in the eyeball. The way the AL Central looks right now, a bad weekend could put the Sox behind the Twins and even closer to the bottom of the division. As the night dragged on, Ozzie cooled down and hopped on Twitter to close out the story.

According to my three years of high school Spanish (and the educational television program “Destinos”) “vamosa vino tinto” means “going to the red wine.” I’m not 100% on “duro pa lante”, but I have no reason to believe Ozzie’s any better at Spanish than he is at English.

Edit: Because I suddenly have a huge Spanish speaking audience, it’s been brought to my attention that Ozzie’s tweet boils down to “Go Venezuelan soccer team, let’s be tough”. So it’s good that Ozzie could move on from his no good very bad day, and bad that I’m too American to understand anything other than the messed up pseudo-language I speak.

[h/t Big League Stew]

Hey, welcome back. How was your Independence Day, assuming you’re American? Mine was great. It’s so dry in Texas right now that a Bic lighter flick would set half of Austin on fire, so my fireworks experience was limited to what I could see on TV and what I could see glaring out of my window into the parking lot at like 11:30.

Sports

PoV: Bo Jackson Climbs An Outfield Wall - Bo Jackson’s legacy these days is basically Tecmo Bowl, but he was really something special in his prime. Imagine Albert Pujols, except super fast and scaling walls. That’s either the best baseball player ever or a terrifying nightmare. [Smoking Section]

Fausto Carmona’s Bogus Journey - If you were Away From Computer yesterday (and you probably should’ve been) we did a full day of updates, including this little gem about Fausto Carmona’s haphazard rollerblade trip to first base in Saturday’s Tribe game. As my good friend Davey Vega put it, “he should probably just retire”. [With Leather]

When Patriotism Goes Wrong: The Best of Fireworks Fails - We also covered “sort-of not sports” yesterday, including this gallery of people getting hit (or pretending to get hit) in the johnson with fire. [With Leather]

Welcome Back, Doomsayers - Kissing Suzy Kolber returns from its sexy vacation, so now there is 100% less of that busty Dolphins girl on my With Leather sidebar. [KSK]

Not Sports

Thor Sequel to Be Less Shakespearey - …which is too bad, because it’s going to be opening on the same weekend as Batman 3, Spider-Man negative one, Iron Man and Hulk Ultimate Team-Up, What If: The Movie starring The Punisher and probably Wolverine, six concurrent Superman movies, a Booster Gold mini-series and parts 1 and 3 of a Flaming Carrot trilogy. Picture of Kat Dennings somewhat related. [Film Drunk]

Man Who Unleashed Rebecca Black On the World Tries Again - I like that the guys who were so bad at music and videos it became a phenomenon are now saying they “masterminded” Rebecca Black’s rise to stardom. Sure, and I masterminded my toe into the coffee table this morning. [Uproxx]

Over 12 Minutes of Batman: Arkham City - I may have to stop blogging for a couple of weeks when this gets released. If you come to With Leather and it’s just two posts by Burnsy and gallery of me playing PS3, you’ll know what happened. Dear God, make this come out right now. [Gamma Squad]

The Ten Best Corgi Blogs On the Web - Arguably every corgi blog on the web is one of the best, except for that weird racist one. I’m just kidding, but you know there’s a racist corgi blog somewhere. If not, I’m gonna start one. [Warming Glow]

Alternate title: e’ouch

Before you can even type “Albert Pujols out 4-6 weeks following wrist injury”, the Internet has turned itself inside out reacting to Kansas City Royal Wilson Betemit’s Flash-on-Anti-Monitor run into Albert’s glove, showing us that the world’s most powerful living entity can feel pain, and that when he feels it, he does a weird little hop to show it.

Of course, if what’d happened to Pujols happened to me I wouldn’t have hopped weird, I would’ve collapsed into a screaming mess there by first base and hyperventilated until I passed out and somebody dragged me to a local medical facility. In the even that you haven’t seen the play from Sunday, hop over to embed-unfriendly MLB.com and check it out. It isn’t Theismann’s Leg bad, but it might make your wrist hurt for the rest of the day.

So, what does this mean for the Cardinals? It means more Lance Berkman. Anybody excited about that? Maybe Red Schoendienst has an extra pair of homer-hitting pants that Berkman can wear until Pujols heals. The Cards have been doing all right without Adam Wainwright, so the loss of Albert will be the next step in the social experiment to see how many players you have to take away from a team before they start playing like the Spring Twins.

[via The Entire Internet]

Oh, hello, I didn’t see you there. Sorry, since about the middle of last night I’ve been dancing around in circles with a glitter wand, laughing and clapping my hands because (so far) this has been the best baseball season ever. The Tribe scored 19 runs to beat the second place Royals in front of a sellout Kauffman Stadium crowd of two midgets and a severed torso, and it was glorious. I can’t wait until we clinch the division, then move on to tackle steam-powered steroid digger Jose Bautista and his lookers-on in the playoffs.

The only words I know to “Oh Happy Day” are oh, happy and day, but I’m singing it anyway.

Sports

Tribe Offense Piles on 19 Runs to Rout Royals - In case you skimmed that opening paragraph, go read this game recap from a guy who has my dream job: writing about the Indians killing the Royals. Actually, I think my dream job would be writing about the Indians killing the Yankees, but I think it’s the same job. Oh who am I kidding, my dream job is being Lee South and taking cheesecake photos of wrestling girls. Or possibly being Winnie the Pooh at Disney World. [Indians.com]

The 20 Ugliest Caps Licensed By Major League Baseball - This made me laugh out loud, if only for how much I could identify. I don’t think the Tribe hat featured here is ugly, necessarily, but I will be in the cold, dead ground before I wear a baseball hat that isn’t proper baseball team colors. Come for the racism, stay for “Funky Dopetastic.” [SBN]

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