{"id":3265,"date":"2013-06-23T16:18:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T20:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/?p=3265"},"modified":"2013-06-23T16:18:31","modified_gmt":"2013-06-23T20:18:31","slug":"mariano-rivera-does-not-want-to-start-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2013\/06\/23\/mariano-rivera-does-not-want-to-start-all-star-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariano Rivera does not want to start All-Star Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3266\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3266\" style=\"width: 675px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3266\" alt=\"marianorivera\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2013\/06\/marianorivera.jpg\" width=\"675\" height=\"431\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2013\/06\/marianorivera.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2013\/06\/marianorivera-300x191.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3266\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">credit: getty images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mariano Rivera is retiring at the end of the 2013 season but the 43-year-old does not want to start the final All-Star Game of his career. An online campaign had been started via blogs and twitter urging American League manager Jim Leyland to start Rivera in the mid-summer classic.<\/p>\n<p>Rivera is aware of the intentions of those who want the all-time saves leader to start the All-Star Game but he is not on board.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been told about it, but I don&#8217;t like it,&#8221; Rivera told reporters, via <a href=\"http:\/\/ftw.usatoday.com\/2013\/06\/mariano-rivera-loves-old-timers-day-but-does-not-love-starting-games\/\" target=\"_blank\">USA Today FTW<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat I do is close the games,\u201d he explained. \u201cI don\u2019t start the games. It\u2019s a privilege and an honor to be considered like that, but I think the right thing is to do it the way it is \u2014 especially when it counts. I don\u2019t want to start the game and give up 10 runs in the first inning. I\u2019d rather pitch in the ninth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rivera&#8217;s comments were made on Sunday prior to the Yankees 67th Old Timers Day. Next year the 19 year veteran will be at the event as one of numerous ex-Yankees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mariano Rivera is retiring at the end of the 2013 season but the 43-year-old does not want to start the final All-Star Game of his career. An online campaign had been started via blogs and twitter urging American League manager Jim Leyland to start Rivera in the mid-summer classic. Rivera is aware of the intentions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[61,38],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":{"0":"post-3265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-mariano-rivera","9":"tag-new-york-yankees"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3265"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}