The Sandman's 500th (and his 1st)

Mo is not only the most feared closer in baseball, he's the most feared hitter in baseball, walking 33% of the time. Not since Babe Ruth have the Yankees been blessed with a player that dominates as both a pitcher and hitter. (from Respect Jeter's Gangster)

The expression on Jeter's face when K-Rod pitched to him at the beginning of his at-bat (2 on, 2 out, with Mariano Rivera waiting for his 3^rd career at-bat) was enough to make any Yankee fan laugh, but the laughter turned to gleeful hysterics he (eventually) was intentionally walked to bring up Mo for a quick third out. Why? 'Cuz one of the most feared closers working today enabled Mariano to work him to a full-count and then drew a walk, adding an insurance run to the Yankee totals, and giving Mo yet another statistic: 1 RBI (or, as Big League Stew noted, 2,296 behind Aaron). Not to overload this post with quotes, but...I laughed out loud (only funny because it's tuh-rue) at Craig Calcaterra's comment:

Francisco Rodriguez gave it up, which in some cosmic way illustrates the vast gulf between those two pitchers in my mind. How do you walk Mariano Rivera? Nerves is all I can think, and you can bet your ass that if the situation was reversed, Rivera would never have walked Rodriguez, because Rivera's body temperature runs at a constant 57 degrees.

Rivera (the other #42) then went on to do what he does best: sending batters to bed, earning his 500th save in the process.

His reaction? After hugging every teammate and coach, he had to go speak to the press. He was nothing but class, of course. "I don't play for the records, I play for the Yankees."

He's simply the best.