"The Closer" by Mariono Rivera

         "The Closer" by Mariano Rivera is an auto-biography about a boy raised in the poor country of Panama, and his journey to becoming  a phenomonal baseball player.  It is your classic rags to riches story where a young man overcomes  many obstacles such as poverty and hardships to become the successful baseball player he is now.   I learned from this story that no obstacle is to big with perserverence and hard work.

         The book begins with Mariano recalling his early childhood in a poor country.  Mariano lived a hard life as a child working at sea six days a week, in order to eat,  make money and help feed his family.  Mariano recalls in his book " I had no choice, though. I had no money and this is how I could earn it"  At that time, baseball was not a luxury he could pursue.   Although his lifelong dream was to play in the MLB,  working and supporting his family was his top priority.  He worked side by side with his father in often treacherous conditions such as storms and floods.  It was dangerous work where he related that a friend of his lost an arm when it got it caught between two boats. It was lonely and hard work.  The time at sea was difficult because he spent only one day a week on land and saw very little of his girlfriend, Clara who later on became his wife. This is one of the many obstacles he had to overcome to get where he is now.

        His experience as a baseball player as a child was limited and consisted of using a stick for a bat and a rock covered with net for a ball.   "We had no baseball gloves, but it's amazing what kind of pocket you can make out of cardboard box or a six-pack milk carton, if you know how to fold it," says  Mariano.  There is very few details in the book about his childhood playing baseball but it is clear from the information given that his experiance playing baseball as a kid was very different from the average child growing up in America.  Not being able to afford a glove is a very hard obstacle to overcome. It  also makes it very hard to play baseball. In addition he had limited time to practice, because he was fishing beside his father, 6 days per week and the last day for spending time with his girlfgriend clara. This was hard work and very difficult.  This was another obstacle that Mariano had to overcome to get where he is now.

     As you can see, Mariano Rivera became a great baseball player despite the poverty he grew up in and the limited resources that he had.   But no obstacle was too big with perserverence and hard work. Mariano overcame many challenges but he had perserverence and worked hard, and followed his dream. It was hard living the life of Mariano Rivera but he overcame that. I learned a very important lesson from this book and so should anyone else who reads it.