Summary Of Mariano Rivera's 'The Closer'

Introduction “The Closer” is an autobiography by Mariano Rivera. Mariano was born on November 29, 1969 in Panama City. He pitched for the New York Yankees from 1995 to 2013 and is seen by many baseball fans as the greatest closing pitcher to ever play the game. Mariano totaled 652 career saves, which is a record in Major League Baseball (MLB). A save in baseball is when a pitcher enters the game with their team in the lead and finishes the game without ever losing the lead. Mariano’s autobiography uses many course themes discussed in class, such as social philosophy, cultural diffusion, religious influences, militarism, social class, and what it is like to be an international professional athlete.
Summary
“The Closer” begins with Mariano’s childhood in Panama. Mariano discusses social class and what it is like to grow up in a poor fishing community. Mariano grew up with few material items like toys or books, but he saw the value of relationships with family and friends to be sufficient for him. He writes about how he developed his morals of hard work,
Mariano mentions players that have used performance enhancing substances and describes his feelings about how the use of these substances disgraces the game and the players who take them. This is a very controversial topic in sports today and has grown to be a more prominent topic of discussion over the course of history. Although Mariano does criticize cheating in professional sports I think he did not do a great job of discussing some of his teammates involvement with performance enhancing drugs such as Alex Rodriguez. He even defends his teammates at points throughout the story after previously stating his opinion on the use of performance enhancing substances. However, he does explain that he is very loyal to his teammates, and he will never turn his back on them even though he may not agree with some decisions they