The New York Yankees will dedicate a plaque to Mariano Rivera in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium before an Aug. 14 game against the Tampa Bay Rays this season, the team announced Thursday.
Rivera, who retired after the 2013 season, helped New York win five World Series. He is the major league career saves leader during the regular season (652) and postseason (42).
New York, which made the announcement Thursday, retired Rivera's No. 42 in September 2013. Major League Baseball retired the number throughout the league in 1997 in honor of Jackie Robinson, but players wearing it at the time could continue to use it.
Rivera was the last player to wear the number.
"It is a great pleasure and honor for me to be the last player to ever wear number 42," Rivera said during a pregame ceremony held before the last regular-season day home game of his 19-season career two and a half years ago. Since then his number in Yankees pinstripes has been on display in Monument Park alongside the 15 other retired team numbers.
On that day, several of Rivera's former teammates were on hand, including Core Four member Jorge Posada, former Yankee manager Joe Torre along with Gene Michael, the general manager at the time Rivera signed with the organization in 1990. His longtime teammate, Derek Jeter, was the starting shortstop.
"Enter Sandman," the song that for more than a decade was played when Rivera was called into games at the Stadium, was played live by heavy metal superstar band, Metallica after Rivera was introduced.
Based on reporting by the Associated Press.
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