Mariano Rivera and the All-Time Saves Lead

In the aftermath of the fanfare surrounding Derek Jeter's achievement of 3000 hits, Yankee fans have returned, largely, to focusing on the team as a whole and the games it can win.  While attention to winning games should never waver, I'm finding myself perplexed as to why we aren't attending to one of the next tremendous achievements on the horizon -- one that is so rare and so special it should be all over the newspapers even now. What I refer to is Mariano Rivera's approach of the record for all-time saves.  This isn't a Yankee-specific record, or a record that players periodically break.  This is the MLB record for most saves EVER in a career.  At the moment, Trevor Hoffman holds the record with 601 saves, and that target has been stationary since Hoffman's retirement.  Rivera has 586, only 15 short of the mark.  When Rivera breaks this record -- and I say when, not if -- it will be monumental.

At the moment Rivera is 277 saves ahead of the active closer behind him -- Francisco Cordero of the Cincinnati Reds with 309.  What that means is that no one in the next several years even stands a chance of catching him.  How appropriate for a career-long Yankee, the team with the MLB record for World Series wins (as though that needs to be said) that is so far ahead of the team behind them (the Cardinals with 10 wins) that they will not be caught in my lifetime, if ever.  I look forward to watching Rivera's march toward history.