Mariano Rivera Day: The Last Man to Wear 42

September 22, 2013. Before Mariano Rivera threw a single pitch that night, the Yankees spent 50 minutes doing something they'd never actually done before: retiring a number for a guy who was still active. Not a tribute. Not a "we'll get to it eventually." An honest-to-God plaque in Monument Park, unveiled while Rivera still had four regular-season games left to pitch. And buried inside that ceremony was a piece of baseball history that has nothing to do with saves or cutters -- Mo became the last player in Major League Baseball who was ever allowed to wear No. 42.

The Number Nobody Else Gets

Here's the part that gets glossed over whenever people talk about Rivera's farewell season: MLB retired No. 42 leaguewide in April 1997, the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. It's the only number retired across every team, every uniform, forever. But commissioner Bud Selig built in a grandfather clause -- guys already wearing 42 could keep it until they hung up their cleats.

A handful of players qualified. Most of them were gone from the league within a few years. Rivera wasn't. He kept wearing it through 1998, through 2003, through 2009, through every one of his 1,115 regular-season appearances and 96 more in October, until there was nobody left wearing it but him. (Seventeen years of a grandfather clause with a sample size of one. That's not a loophole anymore. That's just Mo's number.)

So when September 22 arrived, it wasn't just Mariano Rivera Day -- a title New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made official that morning. It was the day No. 42 actually left the sport. Robinson's number got retired in 1997 on paper. It got retired for real in 2013, on a mound in the Bronx, with the man who'd carried it the whole way there to see it off.

Fifty Minutes, and Metallica Showed Up

The Yankees don't do subtle, and they didn't start with Rivera. Former teammates walked out one by one before the ceremony hit its peak -- Joe Torre, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill, David Cone, John Wetteland, longtime trainer Gene Monahan, a small army of Core Four-adjacent legends standing on the infield grass. Then Metallica -- the actual band -- set up on a stage in center field and ripped through a live "Enter Sandman" while Rivera walked in from the outfield fence to the mound, for what may have been the last time that entrance music ever meant anything. (Whoever in the front office signed off on flying Metallica in for a jersey retirement deserves a raise.)

The Yankees handed Rivera a Waterford crystal replica of his glove and a $100,000 check made out to his foundation. Metallica gave him a custom amp with "Metallica 42 Sandman" etched into it. It was excessive, it was a little much, and it was exactly right -- because nothing about Rivera's career had ever needed proportion. The man saved 652 games. Excess was the whole point.

Rachel Robinson's Blessing

The moment that actually mattered came from a woman who never played an inning of major league baseball. Rachel Robinson, Jackie's widow, attended the ceremony along with the couple's daughter, Sharon. Rachel had spent 16 years watching Rivera wear her husband's number, and she used the occasion to tell him, in essence, that he'd earned the privilege -- that he'd carried it with the class the honor demanded.

That's the detail that separates this ceremony from every other number retirement the Yankees have ever thrown. Don Mattingly's day was about what a player meant to a franchise. Rivera's day was about what a player meant to a legacy that started three decades before he was born. He wasn't just closing his own career. He was closing a chapter of Robinson's story that had stayed open, quietly, since 1997.

Why the Grandfather Clause Mattered

MLB could've forced every 42 off the field the day the retirement went into effect. Instead, the league let history play out. Guys like Butch Huskey (through 1999) and Mo Vaughn (through 2003) kept wearing 42 for a few more years and then the league ran out of them, and one by one the number thinned out across the majors until it belonged to exactly one player. That it landed on a Hall of Fame lock, a five-time champion, and by every account one of the classiest players to ever put on the uniform wasn't scripted. It just worked out that way.

By the time Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte walked out to pull Rivera from a game four days later in his actual final appearance, the number retirement was already done. The plaque was already hanging. Baseball had already run out of anyone else to wear 42. That's the part of September 22 that doesn't show up in the highlight reel of Rivera sobbing into Jeter's shoulder -- but it's the part that makes the whole month feel like it happened for a reason bigger than one team's bullpen.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Mariano Rivera Day?

Mariano Rivera Day was September 22, 2013. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared the date in Rivera's honor, and the Yankees held a 50-minute pregame ceremony at Yankee Stadium retiring his No. 42 in Monument Park.

Why was Mariano Rivera the last player to wear No. 42?

MLB retired Jackie Robinson's No. 42 leaguewide in 1997, but built in a grandfather clause allowing players already wearing it -- including Rivera -- to keep it until they retired. Rivera wore it from 1995 through 2013, longer than every other grandfathered player, making him the last active major leaguer ever permitted to wear it.

Who attended Mariano Rivera Day?

Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson's widow, and her daughter Sharon attended the ceremony, along with former Rivera teammates and Yankees figures including Joe Torre, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill, and David Cone. Metallica also performed a live version of "Enter Sandman" as Rivera walked in from the outfield fence to the mound.

Is Mariano Rivera Day the same as his final game?

No. Mariano Rivera Day and the No. 42 retirement ceremony happened on September 22, 2013. Rivera's actual final game came four days later, on September 26, 2013, against Tampa Bay -- the day Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte walked out to remove him from the mound for the last time.