The career of Mariano Rivera, and James Traub’s excellent, exquisite, superlative profile of him in the New York Times Magazine. The former has a few flaws — the ninth inning of Game 7 in the 2001 World Series, the Alomar homer — but so few as to be statistical noise. The latter has one big one, which is to describe Rivera’s excellence as boring, merely because it manifests itself through the absence of offensive action. But that misunderstands baseball. Every at-bat is its own story, with a narrative arc that unfolds and finds resolution. One can be more and less interested in any particular at-bat. But one can’t say Mo’s performances during those at-bats are boring simply because Mo so often dominates them. They don’t feel boring while they occur — unless you don’t like baseball, in which case you’re not going to be interested in reading about the greatest closer in history.