KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If there has been one constant with the Yankees during the recent edition of their dynasty, it has been the unparalleled success and durability of Mariano Rivera. Rivera, 42, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee while chasing a fly ball during batting practice before the Yankees’ 4-3 loss to the Royals. As he ran toward the center-field wall, his knee buckled and he crashed into the wall, then fell to the warning-track dirt, clutching his right knee as he grimaced in pain.  Rivera was taken to Kansas University MedWest hospital for a magnetic resonance imaging test. The Royals’ team physician, Dr. Vincent Key, provided a diagnosis of the torn A.C.L., which almost certainly means Rivera has thrown the last pitch of his season, if not his career. An emotional Rivera said through tears after the game that he had let the team down. When asked if he thought he would come back to pitch again, he was uncertain. “At this point I don’t know, I don’t know, we have to face this first,” he said, then after a pause to collect himself, he added: “It all depends how the rehab is going to happen. From there, we’ll see.”

Listen – I’m the biggest Yankee hater on the planet Earth. The hate I have for the Yankees would make a Red Sox fan question my hostility. Its unhealthy. Its deplorable. People always ask me why I hate them so much even though I live in New York City, but the answer is simple – its because I root for the Mets. The Mets have always had the short end of the stick for all of eternity. The rest of the city roots for the Yankees, who always seem to come out on top. And one of the major reasons they’ve always come out on top during my lifetime is because of Mariano Rivera.

He’s legitimately the one dude on the Yankees for the past 15 years I can’t say a bad word about. I hate Jeter. He’s a smug dickhead. I hate Pettitte. He was a cheater, no matter how you cut it. Roger Clemens is seriously a bad person. It goes without saying Arod is a dick. I hate Bernie and Tino and Posada with the fire of a thousand suns. I watched Joba and all the other “heir apparents” come up short with joy.  But the one dude who always was a cut above was Mariano. Never said a word and dominated. I’ve been watching that stupid fucking cutter for so long. I’ve been watching him saw off bats since I can remember. I proclaimed his career done after Luis Gonzalez hit a bloop single off of him to end the 2001 World Series. Proclaimed his career over after the 2004 fiasco. Every April in 06, 07, 08, 09 and 2010 I called his career over because it was just unfathomable that he would keep doing it over and over again. Every single season for a solid 10 years, I’ve been wrong.

Now it seems like there’s finally a reason to expect the worst, and I can’t even enjoy it. Trust me, I wish Mariano slowly broke down and got crushed by every batter he ever faced. But Yankee Haters like me won’t even get that luxury. We may never watch him struggle. How sick is that? We may never see him truly fall off. He could never throw another pitch again and still be one of the most dominate pitchers of all time. Thats fuckin nuts.

Do you know what bothers me most of all?  Enter Sandman. Dude legitimately doesn’t give a fuck about that song at all, but he turned it into a New York City baseball anthem. Still not sure he even knows any of the words or knows who sings it. All he knows is right before Sinatra they play some crazy heavy metal song and thats his cue to get 3 outs on 12 pitches and 3 broken bats. The Stadium could have played Mary Had A Little Lamb as he ran out from the pen and still had the same outcome.