Mariano Rivera: Alien or Robot? You Decide.

Since Mariano Rivera is clearly not human, he's either an alien or a robot, right? Right. Sadly, there's probably no right answer to this age-old question. Regardless of what he'd like his foes to believe, he's still perfectly capable of punishing the strikezone and its general vicinity, and could theoretically continue to do so well into his 50s, Satchel Paige style.

Although we may never know the real answer to what makes the New York Yankees closer tick, we could be offered a few hints when ESPN's Tom Rinaldi takes an in-depth look at the ridiculously efficient righty on E:60 this Tuesday, May 11 at 7pm ET.

A few snippets...

"Amazing. Unbelievable. I still don’t understand how it happened. Yes, I have abilities, but there were far better players than me. My confidence never changed because I know who I trust and I know who I am. When you have that kind of attitude and mentality it doesn’t matter the outcomes. Sometimes you’re going to lose, a lot of times you’re going to win."

- Rivera on what it's like being the best closer in the history of the universe.

"That imprint has to be that I did everything within my power to help others, to do the right thing for the NY Yankees, for my teammates, my family and that alone, I’ll be happy with that."

- on the imprint he hopes to leave on the game... like we'll ever be able to mention the word 'closer' without his name somewhere nearby.

"Getting the final out is great, the final out in the World Series is 'Wow, we’re champions!' We did it."

- on the (incredibly obvious) difference between plain-old regular season save situations and the intensity of the World Series.

Here is an interesting clip from the show...