Being a closer in baseball is often similar to being an NFL kicker. You could make 15 kicks or convert 15 saves in a row, but as soon as you give up a walk-off three-run home run or miss a 48-yarder by a few inches you are suddenly the least popular player on the team.
That is what has made the career of Mariano Rivera so fascinating. He has pitched at a dominant level for 18 years in a row and has seemingly gotten better as he has pitched into his early 40’s, playing for a team that has not been kind to many players who have struggled in New York and had success elsewhere.
Rivera’s 2013 season so far could not have gone much better. He has, at age 43, a miniscule 1.64 ERA and 33 saves and he pitched a scoreless 8th inning in the All-Star game to give the American League their first win in the game since 2009. Even with all of his personal success this season, however, he has announced that he will indeed be retiring at season’s end. His announcement has led to an outpouring
of support by not only from Yankee fans, but even from rival Red Sox fans and numerous other stadiums around the league have given Rivera a send-off rarely seen for a visiting player. Rivera even acquired a chair from the Minnesota Twins made of his broken bats and the Texas Rangers also honored him with a pair of New York Yankees inscribed cowboy boots.
With Rivera having given so many great moments to baseball fans all over the country, AT&T is giving fans the opportunity to thank Mariano virtually for each special moment and also to potentially appear on the scoreboard scoreboard at Yankee Stadium!
The “My Favorite Mo-ment” campaign allows fans to create video, photo and text “thank you” messages and upload them to a dedicated, mobile-enabled microsite here. The site is currently live and accepting submissions from fans. Once fans are on the website they will get a video tutorial from Yankees manager Joe Girardi on how to upload a video, photo or message, preview other messages from fans, and share their own support for Mariano.
As part of its ongoing sponsorship with the Yankees, AT&T will also host a booth at Yankees Stadium during home games for the rest of the season where fans can warm up and record their messages for Mariano. This content will also be integrated into the website. The campaign will run until the latter part of the regular season when AT&T will combine a series of the fan-submitted content to share with Mariano and pinstripe fans on Yankee Stadium’s scoreboard. The fan submissions may also become part of the AT&T Yankees advertising on the YES Network.