Let’s start with a date: April 29, 2003.
Let’s offer some context. Three days before, Carson Palmer was selected first overall in the NFL Draft by the Bengals. Two days afterward, George W. Bush stood in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared the end of major combat in Iraq.
For those counting, it was 3,267 days ago.
It also was the last time Mariano Rivera came off the disabled list.
I looked it up as I watched a group of closers head to the DL: Cincinnati’s Ryan Madson and Kansas City’s Joakim Soria (both with Tommy John surgery) for the season, Boston’s Andrew Bailey (thumb) for four months, and Tampa Bay’s Kyle Farnsworth and Washington’s Drew Storen (both with elbow injuries) for unknown durations.
One of the most amazing traits of the amazing Rivera is his durability in a job that tends to eat its young both physically and mentally. Since last appearing on the DL, Rivera had appeared in 595 games and registered 360 saves (with a 1.89 ERA in that span). If you want a feel how long a stretch 595 games without the DL is, it represents roughly the entire career of Brad Lidge, who appeared in his 593rd game on Opening Day as Storen’s replacement and recorded his 224th career save.
The 360 saves by themselves would rank eighth all time, just ahead of Troy Percival (358) and just behind Jeff Reardon (367). Of course, that is not a true list because Rivera already sits atop the heap with 603 saves — even after blowing the season opener against the Rays.
Rivera has hinted this is the beginning of his last year, and what all the data makes me wonder is if he is creating one of those records — like Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak or Cy Young’s win total — that never will be broken.
I am pretty comfortable saying this: Unless high-strung, max-effort Jonathan Papelbon has 400 more saves in him, no one is within 20 years of breaking Rivera’s record. It is probable that player is not even in the majors yet. It is possible he is not born. It is possible that he is never going to be born.
Why don’t we conservatively give Rivera 27 saves this year and say he actually does retire. That means he will finish with 630 saves. Someone is going to have to average 30 saves a year for 21 seasons to tie that. It is not impossible. But it is in the category just next to impossible to believe someone is going to come along to combine the fortitude to endure two decades in a job that is uber-stressful on body and mind.
Let’s try to put 630 saves in context. Francisco Cordero (327) and Jason Isringhausen (300) have combined for 627 saves in their career. They currently rank Nos. 2 and 3 on the active saves list to Rivera. And they now are both setup men. So is Francisco Rodriguez (291), who ranks fourth. Joe Nathan, 37 and coming off Tommy John surgery, has the most saves (262) among active closers after Rivera.
Detroit’s Jose Valverde (242) and Lidge are next on the active list, and Valverde is 34 and the injury-plagued. Lidge is 35. Papelbon is 31 and, like Rivera, did not begin pitching regularly in the majors until 25. He began this season with 219 saves. So even if he averages 40 saves a year for 10 more years — until he is 41 — he still would be at 619. Is there even a 1-percent chance of that?
And there is not another young-ish closer with any significant save total yet to even put him on a trajectory toward Rivera.
Logic dictates that if Trevor Hoffman can reach 600 saves and Rivera can exceed it, which he did last Sept. 19, then why can’t some other reliever
come along to pass Rivera one day? It is an obvious enough question and certainly in the realm of possibility.
But keep this in mind: To break the record, a reliever almost certainly would have to have the resilience to appear in more than 1,000 games, and
just 15 ever have done that. He would need that heartiness in a job so demanding on body and soul that it is filled with many more flash-in-the-pan Bobby Thigpens and Eric Gagnes than Hoffmans and Riveras.
To appreciate what kind of outliers Hoffman and Rivera are, understand that the third-place man in saves is Lee Smith at 478. In other words, there is no one else who even has been within 100 of 600.
There also is no certainty closers even will be used how they are today. The Chicago baseball writer Jerome Holtzman created the save rules in 1960, and closers became part of the fabric of the game in the 1970s.
There already has been an evolution from the multi-inning fireman to the one-inning specialist of today. The game is now more attuned to statistical analysis, which shows that closers are often misused by not being deployed in a multitude of high-leverage situations that do not necessarily come with a save as a prize.
It would be no shock to see more managers stray from the current dogma and use a series of relievers to their strengths or to address particular game situations. In other words, if you have a dominant lefty, use him in the ninth inning if lefty batters are due, and vice versa for a dominant righty. This essentially is what bold, innovative Tampa Bay skipper Joe Maddon is doing now with Farnsworth out — deploying a series of relievers in various roles, including closer.
Here is one other item: We do not know for sure if Rivera is retiring after this season. Maybe he keeps going. Toward 700. Toward no one having a chance to catch him. Ever.
joel.sherman@nypost.com