Three swings with three of the most memorable at-bats of Mariano Rivera’s career:

1. Mike Blowers, Mariners, eighth inning, 1995 American League Division Series, Game 5, Kingdome

With the Yankees and Mariners tied at two games apiece in the series clincher, the Yanks took a 4-2 lead into the eighth. But David Cone couldn’t hold it, and Seattle tied the game at 4-4. With two out and the bases loaded, Yankees manager Buck Showalter summoned Rivera, a raw rookie, to face Mike Blowers. This was the at-bat that launched Rivera into the national spotlight, though the Mariners would win 6-5 in 11 innings. …

“I saw him coming out of the bullpen and turned around to walk back to the dugout to ask [coach] Lee Elia for a scouting report,” Blowers remembers. “He had a pretty good fastball, mid-90s, with a little late cut to it.

“I watched him warm up and didn’t think much of it. Certainly, I didn’t realize he was going to become the greatest closer ever, a Hall of Famer.”

Blowers’ plan, as it usually was in those days, was to go to the plate, stay aggressive and go after the first good fastball that he saw.

“Just before I went to the plate, Vince Coleman came out and asked me what I was going to do,” Blowers says. "He told me, 'He’s a young guy who isn’t going to be sure of the situation. Why don’t you take one?'

“The first pitch was 93 right down the middle. I kicked myself for taking it.”

Second pitch, Blowers fouled off for strike two.

Third pitch, he watched strike three sail by.

“Every fastball he threw was a little harder,” Blowers says. “It’s the only at-bat I have regret about. Not so much what I would have done with it; I don’t feel badly about that. I just wish I would have given myself a chance. That first pitch wasn’t his best fastball. Then he put me away.”

Says Rivera: “That moment was one of the defining moments for myself. The Lord give me a solid platform. You’re talking about a rookie coming to the Kingdome, 50,000 people screaming. It was so loud you couldn’t even hear yourself from two feet apart.

“Coming into the game with the bases loaded, facing Mike Blowers, who hit I don’t know how many HRs that season [23], to be able to do what I did in three pitches ... that was a defining moment, definitely.”

Says Blowers, now a Mariners television analyst: “I’ve just always appreciated what he’s done and what he’s about. A lot of guys have been great pitchers, Hall of Fame pitchers. Very few have handled themselves the way he has.”

Blowers smiles.

“That little skip-hop he does coming through the bullpen door, then he comes jogging in,” he says. “I’ll miss that.”

2. Luis Gonzalez, Diamondbacks, ninth inning, 2001 World Series, Game 7, Chase Field:

With the World Trade Center ruins still smoldering in Manhattan just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Yankees were on the verge of winning an incredibly emotional World Series, taking a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning against a neophyte franchise. …

Manager Joe Torre had gone to Rivera early, and the closer rewarded him by working a scoreless eighth inning. But Mark Grace led off the bottom of the ninth with a single. Then, the slick-fielding Rivera committed a rare error, throwing Damian Miller’s bunt into center field.

Then, with one out, Tony Womack drilled a game-tying double and Rivera hit Craig Counsell with a pitch, bringing Luis Gonzalez to the plate. One broken-bat single later, the stunned Yankees were headed home. The Diamondbacks were world champions.

“To me, it’s no disappointment,” Rivera says today. “To me, they beat us. Hey. We did what we have to do, and it wasn’t enough.”

All these years later, Rivera is philosophical. Asked whether it took very long to get over the rushing loss, he shakes his head. A broken bat. What are you going to do?

“I was able to do what I needed to do, and it didn’t work that day,” he says. “It didn’t work in the ninth inning. That was that. As long as you did your best, that’s all you can ask. Then you can walk away.”

3. Dave Roberts running, Bill Mueller batting, Red Sox, ninth inning, 2004 ALCS, Game 4, Fenway Park

The Yankees led 4-3 and were three outs away from a sweep of the Red Sox in the bottom of the ninth inning in Fenway Park on Oct. 17 when Kevin Millar drew a leadoff walk against Rivera, who had worked a scoreless eighth. Boston manager Terry Francona sent Dave Roberts into the game as a pinch-runner. What happened next ignited one of the most shocking comebacks in baseball history. …

“You just knew the game was over,” Roberts, now the Padres’ first-base coach, says of those nights when Rivera entered the game. “That was the one guy in a Yankee uniform you didn’t want to see. Because if you saw him, you knew the game was over. What he means to the Yankees and major league baseball -- he’s a guy who, to a man, commands the most amount of respect. He’s done it right. So for me to have the opportunity to compete against him, it’s something that I cherish.”

Roberts’ steal of second base, positioning him to score the tying run on Bill Mueller’s base hit up the middle, became his signature moment.

“Credit to him first and foremost for being so dominant that we had to go outside the box and couldn’t play it straight as far as a sacrifice bunt to try to get two hits with one out,” Roberts says. “We had to go outside the box and maybe get one hit.

“As far as scouting him and looking at tendencies, I just had had a sequence against him in Yankee Stadium in September where Jorge Posada went out to the mound and had a meeting with Mariano, and I felt he told him to hold the ball against me and then go to the plate.

“And so I felt, if I ever got a chance to be in the same situation, his defense against me would be to hold the ball and then quicken up. So, basically, when I got out there, I tried to calm my nerves as much as possible and wait him out. And so, as he came set, I just knew that after the three throwovers, just wait him out. And he held and he held, and it felt like an eternity.

“I stayed relaxed and got a great jump.”

Roberts slid in safely with the most important stolen base in Red Sox history. Mueller drove him home with a game-tying single up the middle. The Sox won 6-4 in 12 innings. Then they won the next three games en route to their first World Series title in 86 years. That and becoming the first big-league club to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win a seven-game series.

A few years later, Rivera and Roberts happened to both do a commercial shoot for Macy’s department store in Miami.

“It was me and him and Brandon Phillips and Dan Uggla,” Roberts says. “It was a Father’s Day ad. I was with the Giants then. He’s just a pro. He said, ‘Hey, it’s great seeing you, and congratulations again.’ That’s him.”