NE Patriot News

- Count down to September 8th 2013, Quick read on Aaron Dobson.
JNZ




New England Patriots rookie receiver Aaron Dobson believes his background in basketball is still paying dividends

(AP)

By Nick Underhill, MassLive.com masslive.com
Follow on Twitter
on May 04, 2013 at 11:07 AM, updated May 04, 2013 at 11:10 AM

FOXBOROUGH – The first time Aaron Dobson shipped up to Boston, he was in town to visit with Northeastern basketball coach Bill Coen, who wanted him to star in his backcourt.

Dobson already figured out during his senior year of high school, based on his size (6-foot-3, 210 pounds) and athleticism, that he was better suited for football. But it was hard to let go of one of the games he loved, so he visited Northeastern, Hofstra and some other schools that offered him abasketball scholarships.

"I still miss it," he said. "I do."

Dobson averaged 21.6 points and more than eight rebounds, four assists and four steals during his senior season at South Charleston high school in West Virginia, but he ultimately decided to play football at Marshall. After being selected in the second round of last week's draft by the New England Patriots, the wide receiver knows that he made the right choice.

Bill Belichick doesn't know if Dobson's background in basketball has made him a better football player, but he does believe that the sport helps players develop better hands.

"They have to handle the ball a lot. The ball is on them quick, tight passes and handling the ball in traffic and that kind of thing," Belichick said. "Usually when you get a good basketball player, a good basketball player, those guys usually have pretty good ball skills in terms of handling the ball."

Dobson believed the game helped him in another way.

"I feel like they help me out a lot. Body control in the air, attacking the ball how basketball players get rebounds," Dobson said. "I think it carries over."

http://blog.masslive.com/patriots/2013/05/new_england_patriots_rookie_re_1.html

NY Times Article

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/a-black-nurse-a-german-soldier-and-an-unlikely-wwii-romance/?ref=nyregion

Local History May 15, 2013, 11:50 am
A Black Nurse, a German Soldier and an Unlikely WWII Romance
By ALEXIS CLARK

Andrew Sullivan for The New York Times Elinor Powell Albert was a nurse who tended to German P.O.W.'s at a camp in Arizona during World War II. She met her husband, Frederick Albert, while he was a prisoner in the camp.
Andrew Sullivan for The New York Times Chris Albert, a trumpet player in the Duke Ellington Orchestra and a son of Elinor and Frederick Albert, said his parents had a hard time being accepted after they married.

The nurse and the soldier may never have met – and eventually married – had it not been for the American government's mistreatment of black women during World War II.

Elinor Elizabeth Powell was an African-American military nurse. Frederick Albert was a German prisoner of war. Their paths crossed in Arizona in 1944. It was a time when the Army was resisting enlisting black nurses and the relatively small number allowed entry tended to be assigned to the least desirable duties.

"They decided they were going to use African-Americans but in very small numbers and in segregated locations," said Charissa Threat, a history professor at Northeastern University who teaches race and gender studies.

Ms. Powell was born in 1921 in Milton, Mass., and in, 1944, after completing basic training at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., she was sent, as some other black nurses were, to tend to German prisoners of war in Florence, Ariz.

"I know the story of how they met," said Chris Albert, 59, the youngest son of Elinor and Frederick Albert. "It was in the officers' mess hall, and my father was working in the kitchen. He kind of boldly made his way straight for my mother and said: 'You should know my name. I'm the man who's going to marry you.'"

Frederick Karl Albert was born in 1925 in Oppeln, Germany. "He volunteered for the paratroops to impress his father, who served in WWI," Mr. Albert said. "His father was an engineer and not really interested in his children. My dad ended up getting captured in Italy."

He joined many other German prisoners who were detained in camps across the United States. With millions of American men away in combat or basic training, P.O.W.'s became a solution to the labor shortage. "Under the Geneva Convention, enlisted criminals of war could work for the detaining power," said Matthias Reiss, a professor at the University of Exeter, in England, who has researched the history of German P.O.W.'s. "So the idea was, bring them over to America and let them do the unskilled work."

In the camp in Arizona, Frederick Albert worked in the kitchen, where he prepared special meals for Elinor. A romance between the two blossomed but not without consequences. "My dad was severely beaten by a group of officers when they found out about my mom," Mr. Albert said, referring to American soldiers.

At Camp Florence, as well as other camps, the environment for black nurses could be particularly humiliating. The nurses were forced to eat in separate dining halls, apart from white officers on the base.

"My mother mentioned that she was in a bar or some place that had food or drink and they refused to serve her," said Stephen Albert, 66, Elinor and Frederick's oldest son.

The discrimination blacks encountered was not lost on the German P.O.W.'s.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a German soldier who was held captive in America who didn't speak about African-Americans," Professor Reiss said. "They were quite aware there was a major discrimination problem and that the Americans weren't really allowed to occupy the moral high ground on that matter."

By war's end, about 500 black nurses had served in World War II. All German P.O.W.'s, including Frederick Albert, were eventually sent to Germany.

The American military officially ended segregation after WWII, but for the Alberts, the issue of race would resurface throughout their lives. Their unlikely romance resulted in Stephen's birth in December 1946. After Frederick was able to return to the United States, he and Elinor married on June 26, 1947, in Manhattan.

"I would say the first 10 years for my parents were a struggle to find some kind of economic security and a safe haven for an interracial family," said Chris Albert, who plays the trumpet with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

"They moved to Boston and my father worked several jobs,'' he said. "At some point, he decided it was best if they moved to Göttingen, Germany, where his parents lived. He could work for his father's cement manufacturing business."

But Kristina Brandner, 70, a niece of Frederick Albert, said life in Germany was difficult. "Göttingen is a small town,'' she said. "My grandmother never had contact with black people so it was strange and uncomfortable for her with Elinor. Kids used to ask me how come there was a black woman living with us, and why is your cousin another color. Sometimes, I saw Elinor in the kitchen crying."

In less than two years, Frederick, Elinor, Stephen and Chris, who was an infant, returned to the United States.

"We came back and moved to Morton, Pa. And then they went through the school issue," Mr. Albert said.

That issue was the rejection of Stephen's attempt to enroll at a local public school after being told that the school was not open to black children.

"My mother pitched a fit," Mr. Albert said, who still has a copy of the letter Elinor wrote to the school superintendent and a local branch of the N.A.A.C.P.

In 1959, Mr. and Ms. Albert settled in Village Creek, an interracial neighborhood in Norwalk, Conn., where Elinor became an avid gardener and Frederick became a vice president at Pepperidge Farm.

"We always had great music at home," said Mr. Albert, who resides in his childhood house in Norwalk. "My dad had this affinity for New Orleans jazz. I think it was a much larger representation for him. That lack of warmth he felt growing up, he found it in jazz and when he saw my mother."

Mr. Albert's father died in 2001, and his mother in 2005.

"I now ask myself how come I never questioned my dad about Hitler or what he thought about the Nazi movement," said Mr. Albert, who will perform along with his band mates at the Blue Note Jazz Club in the West Village this month.

"My mother didn't talk about it either,'' he said. "They didn't bring up the past. But what I do know about my parents, their story is a remarkable one."

NY Times Article; Bruins Rangers Rivalry Renewed

Rangers, Bruins and a Rivalry That Once Raged

Associated Press

Rangers goalie Ed Giacomin set to block a shot by the Bruins' Johnny Bucyk (9) during a 1970 opening-round series at Madison Square Garden. Boston won the title.

By JEFF Z. KLEIN and PETER MAY

Published: May 14, 2013

• 

Yankees vs. Red Sox, Giants vs. Patriots, Knicks vs. Celtics. Postseason clashes among those teams in recent years have poured fuel on the New York-Boston rivalry.

 

Associated Press

Two years later, Bucyk held the cup aloft again after the Bruins won it at the Garden.

But it has been 40 years since the Rangers and the Bruins met in a playoff series, and passions have cooled on what was once the bitterest sports rivalry between the cities, one that provoked fistfights on the ice and created the need for police escorts.

"Any time we played Boston, it was like a war," said Emile Francis, known as the Cat, who coached the Rangers between 1965 and 1975. "We played 14 times every year, and by halfway through the year, we couldn't stand each other. Some of those playoff games took about five hours to play — it was one brawl after another."

The Rangers and the Bruins, among the Original Six N.H.L. teams, have met nine times in the playoffs, starting in the Rangers' first season, 1926-27. The Rangers won three series, in 1928, 1940 and in 1973, which was also the last time the teams played each other in the postseason.

Fans of a certain age remember the battles of the early 1970s, when the big, bad, high-scoring Bruins of Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Johnny Bucyk, Derek Sanderson and Gerry Cheevers would square off against the more finesse-based Rangers of Rod Gilbert, Brad Park, Jean Ratelle, Vic Hadfield and Ed Giacomin.

The Bruins beat the Rangers en route to the Stanley Cup in 1970 and again in '72, when the teams met in the finals. The Rangers were in the middle of their 54-year Cup drought.

"We didn't like the Rangers — hated them, really," said Sanderson, a shaggy-haired bad boy for those Bruins teams. "We thought they were complainers, whiners. We'd tell them, 'Quit whining, play the game.' Hadfield was a whiner. Giacomin was a whiner."

In the last game of the '72 finals, Sanderson picked a fight with Gilbert.

"Rod is a good guy and a good friend, but I didn't know him that well back then," said Sanderson, 66. "So there were maybe two or three minutes left in a close game when Donnie Marcotte got called for a penalty. I knew Gilbert would be leading the power play, so I jumped him and got him tossed out with me — there was no instigator rule back then. They didn't score on the power play, and we ended up winning."

Gilbert said: "He attacked me in the corner from behind. I said to him, 'That's not fair — that's not how you win the game fairly.' He did the right thing, but I wasn't too pleased with that."

The atmosphere was pretty rough in the stands, too. Francis, 86, remembered what it was like at the old Boston Garden for the 1973 quarterfinal series.

"There's a knock on the door just before it was time to go," Francis said. "Two cops come out and said, 'We're going to take you to the bench.' I said, 'I don't need anybody taking me to the bench.' They said, 'We'd rather play it safe and take you to the bench.'

"The whole way from the dressing room to the bench, you'd hear the language. I get to the bench, I happen to look up at the clock and right there was a big bedsheet, and it said, 'Kill the Cat.' After the game the reporters asked me what I thought of the sign, and I said: 'I don't stop the puck, and I don't put the puck in the net — why'd they want to bother to kill me?' "

The series returned to Madison Square Garden, where the fans hung a huge sign that used vulgarities to refer to Sanderson. "I said, 'Get that sign down, because we're going on national TV,' " Francis remembered.

The memories, and the animosity, go back a long way — long before the 1970s.

"People always assumed that it was Montreal that we didn't like, but there was no love lost for the Rangers," said Milt Schmidt, 95, a Bruins great in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. "We had some great battles with them in those times. Instead of scoring goals, we were in fights all the time."

Schmidt was there in 1939 for the N.H.L.'s first best-of-seven series, when the top-seeded Bruins played the No. 2 Rangers. Boston won the first three games, two in overtime on goals from forward Mel Hill. But the Rangers won the next three.

Game 7 at the Boston Garden was tied, 1-1, after 60 minutes. It took 48 minutes of overtime before Hill ended it again, a record third overtime goal.

Schmidt remembered Hill scoring, but, typically of a Rangers-Bruins series, he recalled something else.

"Art Coulter started to square off with me," Schmidt said. "He was much bigger than me, and I wasn't much of a fighter. We started shoving each other, and then he dropped his gloves. I stepped on one of them and fell flat on my backside. The picture in the paper next day made it look as though he had just flattened me."

Divisional setups and the luck of the draw have kept the Rangers and the Bruins apart in the postseason since 1973, and the rivalry was defused for decades to come by the 1975 and 1976 trades that moved the once-hated Esposito, Ken Hodge and Carol Vadnais to New York, and Ratelle and Park to Boston.

But starting Thursday, a new batch of hatreds will start brewing. Schmidt said that he watched the Bruins' remarkable comeback against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday night, and that he would be watching as Boston takes on the Rangers. So will Gilbert and Francis, and so will Sanderson.

"Hockey has been waiting for a series like this," Sanderson said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/sports/hockey/rangers-and-bruins-renew-a-longtime-playoff-rivalry.html?ref=sports&_r=0

--
Jay

NY Times Article

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/us/politics/indelible-image-of-a-boys-pat-on-obamas-head-hangs-in-white-house.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig


When a Boy Found a Familiar Feel in a Pat of the Head of State

Pete Souza/The White House

In the photo that has hung in the West Wing for three years, President Obama looks to be bowing to 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, his arm raised to touch the president's hair — to see if it feels like his.

By JACKIE CALMES
Published: May 23, 2012 432 Comments

WASHINGTON — For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture of President Obama remains after three years.

In the photo, Mr. Obama looks to be bowing to a sharply dressed 5-year-old black boy, who stands erect beside the Oval Office desk, his arm raised to touch the president's hair — to see if it feels like his. The image has struck so many White House aides and visitors that by popular demand it stays put while others come and go.

As a candidate and as president, Mr. Obama has avoided discussing race except in rare instances when he seemed to have little choice — responding to the racially incendiary words of his former pastor, for example, or to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Florida. Some black leaders criticize Mr. Obama for not directly addressing young blacks or proposing policies specifically for them.

Yet the photo is tangible evidence of what polls also show: Mr. Obama remains a potent symbol for blacks, with a deep reservoir of support. As skittish as White House aides often are in discussing race, they also clearly revel in the power of their boss's example.

The boy in the picture is Jacob Philadelphia of Columbia, Md. Three years ago this month, his father, Carlton, a former Marine, was leaving the White House staff after a two-year stint on the National Security Council that began in the Bush administration. As departing staff members often do, Mr. Philadelphia asked for a family photograph with Mr. Obama.

When the pictures were taken and the family was about to leave, Mr. Philadelphia told Mr. Obama that his sons each had a question. In interviews, he and his wife, Roseane, said they did not know what the boys would ask. The White House photographer, Pete Souza, was surprised, too, as the photo's awkward composition attests: The parents' heads are cut off; Jacob's arm obscures his face; and his older brother, Isaac, is blurry.

Jacob spoke first.

"I want to know if my hair is just like yours," he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.

Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, "Why don't you touch it and see for yourself?" He lowered his head, level with Jacob, who hesitated.

"Touch it, dude!" Mr. Obama said.

As Jacob patted the presidential crown, Mr. Souza snapped.

"So, what do you think?" Mr. Obama asked.

"Yes, it does feel the same," Jacob said.

(Isaac, now 11, asked Mr. Obama why he had eliminated the F-22 fighter jet. Mr. Obama said it cost too much, Isaac and his parents recounted.)

In keeping with a practice of White House photographers back to Gerald R. Ford's presidency, each week Mr. Souza picks new photos for display. That week, Jacob's easily made the cut.

"As a photographer, you know when you have a unique moment. But I didn't realize the extent to which this one would take on a life of its own," Mr. Souza said. "That one became an instant favorite of the staff. I think people are struck by the fact that the president of the United States was willing to bend down and let a little boy feel his head."

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's longtime adviser, has a copy framed in his Chicago office. He said of Jacob, "Really, what he was saying is, 'Gee, you're just like me.' And it doesn't take a big leap to think that child could be thinking, 'Maybe I could be here someday.' This can be such a cynical business, and then there are moments like that that just remind you that it's worth it."

A copy of the photo hangs in the Philadelphia family's living room with several others taken that day. Mr. Philadelphia, now in Afghanistan for the State Department, said: "It's important for black children to see a black man as president. You can believe that any position is possible to achieve if you see a black person in it."

Jacob, now 8, said he indeed does want to be president. "Or a test pilot."

Boston.com Article

 
Living off campus? You can still use 529 plan money

Posted by Cheryl Costa
 
July 11, 2012 09:31 AM

• 
  

Money in a 529 plan can obviously be used for things like tuition, fees and books but many people do not know that 529 plan money can also be used for room and board expenses and can even be used if the student lives in an off-campus apartment (assuming the student attends college on at least a half-time basis).

There are limits, so you can't use money in a 529 plan to rent a high end, luxury apartment. And, the limits can vary by school and by 529 program so it is important to check your plan's documents and you also need to contact the college and ask what figures it reports to the Department of Education for its cost of attendance. This information would be available from the the school's financial aid office.

Once living in the off campus apartment, you should save copies of the lease and the monthly rent checks. You should also save receipts for food purchases. Finally, you need to remember that 529 withdrawals must be timed to match expenses that occur in the calendar year (not the school year) so be sure to match the December checks with December 529 plan withdrawals and the January checks with the the next calendar year withdrawals.

http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/managingyourmoney/archives/2012/07/living_off_camp.html

Yahoo Article; Kevin Spacey Names His New Puppy for Boston

- Hah! Spacey is tha man in Usual Suspects and other films but he loox mad weird in this pic. Yahoo comments are mad funny too...... Cool story though....  
Boston-Terrier  

JNZ


Kevin Spacey Names His New Puppy for Boston
We've loved seeing all the touching tributes to the city of Boston since the Marathon attack last month, and here's yet another to warm our hearts: Kevin Spacey's new puppy.

The House of Cards actor tweeted a photo over the weekend of his new little lady, adopted from the North Shore Animal League. "New member of my family. Her name is Boston in honor of the city," he added.

Spacey flew to Boston after the bombings to visit and pose for photos with doctors, nurses and the first responders who helped at the finish line. "Real heroes," he wrote.

Soon, Boston the puppy will join Spacey's other dog, Mini, who he said is "15 & still acting like a puppy. Be a week or so before she can meet Boston. I'm definitely in dog heaven!"

http://shine.yahoo.com/pets/kevin-spacey-names-puppy-boston-161100937.html

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Ipfh7ZMpiy9X9yeMLjzMmQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTE5MA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/blogs/partner/470_2623075.jpg

Tax Tips

Paying income tax on Social Security benefits

Do I have to pay income taxes on the benefits I receive?

---

You will have to pay federal taxes on your Social Security benefits if you file a federal tax return as an individual and your total income is more than $25,000.  If you file a joint return, you will have to pay taxes if you and your spouse have a total income of more than $32,000.

Use the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Notice 703 shown on the back of the Social Security Benefit Statement, SSA Form 1099, to determine if any of your benefits may be taxable.

Social Security has no authority to withhold state or local taxes from your benefit.  Many states and local authorities do not tax Social Security benefits.  However, you should contact your state or local taxing authority for more information.

http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/493/session/L3RpbWUvMTM2Mzk2MTk3OS9zaWQvUENOdkZPbGw%3D


I

ESPN Article; Mariano Rivera #42

Commentary
Mariano Rivera and No. 42
An era ends as Rivera's last Jackie Robinson Day as an active player arrives
Originally Published: April 15, 2013
By Johnette Howard | ESPN.com

AP Photo/Darren Calabrese/Canadian PressThe sun is setting on Mariano Rivera's unsurpassed career as the last active player to wear No. 42.

NEW YORK -- Mariano Rivera, the Yankees' Hall of Fame-bound closer, keeps insisting that he expects his overriding emotion during this, his last season, to be joy. But he also knows that being the last major leaguer still wearing Jackie Robinson's No. 42 every day of the season confers on him an extra distinction that carries the import of his career's end far beyond New York: When he goes, Robinson's number will go into retirement with him. The only exception will be the one day each year -- April 15th -- when big league field personnel everywhere wear 42 as a tribute to Robinson on the anniversary of his 1947 debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

But Rivera predicts that even when the occasion arrives on Monday (or Tuesday for teams like the Yankees, who are off on Monday), he will look around, soak it in and feel the same as he always has.

"I think it's beautiful," Rivera says, citing the once-a-year visual of all his fellow 42s-for-a-day mingling around the batting cage, running onto the diamond, standing at attention as the national anthem is played, or hustling around the field once the games begin. Rivera grew up in Panama knowing about Latin stars Juan Marichal and Roberto Clemente before he became aware of Robinson. He likes the symbolism of all these latter-day 42s -- be they African-Americans or whites or Latinos -- standing on equal footing. The tribute to Robinson is meant to ensure that no one forgets that this wasn't always so.

"Jackie Robinson was a great man," Rivera said over the weekend before a game against the Baltimore Orioles. "I have always said that wearing this number is a privilege and a great responsibility … to represent what Jackie represented for us, as a minority, and for all of baseball in general, it's tremendous. For me, it's just a privilege to wear and to try to keep that legacy. It makes me want to be at my best. And that's what I tried to do my whole career."

[+] Enlarge Hannah Foslien/Getty ImagesRivera has been more than worthy of the legacy of Jackie Robinson's number.

When commissioner Bud Selig declared in 1997 that Robinson's number would no longer be issued -- it was the 50th anniversary of the day Robinson integrated baseball -- Rivera was among 13 players still wearing 42.

Most of the others were workaday players -- Kirk Reuter, Jose Lima, Butch Huskey. The exception was Mo Vaughn, the burly first baseman who burned bright for a few years and won the 1995 American League Most Valuable Player award before flaming out with the Mets. "Everybody else started retiring," says Rivera, now 43, "and pretty soon I was the only one left, you know? And so it was even more responsibility. And I learned it was more than just the number."

Since 2003, Rivera has been the only 42. And his Yankees teammate, Robinson Cano, finds a sort of poetic justice in that.

"Things happen for a reason," Cano has said.

Cano meant that Rivera is the perfect combination of grace and class, baseball ability and unstinting professionalism to still be standing when the crowd winnowed down to just two: Mo, the greatest closer and one of the best teammates there's ever been, and Robinson, the most important athlete of the 20th century to many people. Robinson was different than Joe Louis, because he wasn't allowed to fight back against the elements in the game that resisted him. He was less overtly political at his career's start than Muhammad Ali, who didn't splash down big until years after Robinson arrived with the Dodgers, but Ali certainly owed a lot to Robinson's groundbreaking example.

But again, Rivera didn't know all that. Not at first. Unlike Huskey, a native Oklahoman who has said he vowed to wear Robinson's number after reading a book about him in elementary school, and unlike Cano, a Dominican whose father -- also a ballplayer -- named him after Robinson, there is no special backstory about how Rivera came to wear 42.

Rivera is a fisherman's son from a tiny village in Panama. In 1995, he was just trying to stick with the Yankees' big league club after arm surgery. When a Yankees' equipment man handed him his 42 game jersey that spring, his only thought was that it signified that he'd made the club. And at first -- don't laugh -- he was a spot starter before being converted to reliever the following year.

In the 19 big league seasons since then, Rivera has grown in stature. He's also grown into a deeper understanding about Robinson, and what wearing the number means to him, not just to everyone else. He says he'd consciously picked up his efforts to find out more about Robinson by the time he became the last No. 42 and even more people were asking him to put what Robinson meant into perspective.

"I definitely tried to learn more about him," Rivera says. "Everything. Just everything. The community work. The man that he was. I always used to talk with Don Zimmer when Zimmer was here. He played with him. Zimmer told me that Jackie took care of him, because Jackie was already established and Zimmer, he was just coming up. It was amazing. He always said to me, 'The man was generous. Not just a great ballplayer.'"

AP PhotoJackie Robinson became a role model for Rivera after he reached the majors.

There are countless more stories of how Robinson's influence rippled outward like that. And that influence hasn't stopped even all these years later, though Robinson died too young from a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 53.

Willie Mays? He once told the New York Times, "'Without Jackie, I wouldn't have gotten out of Birmingham. They knew Jackie was hardheaded and they said, 'You give us two years, and we'll give all your friends a chance.' If he had gotten in a fight within those two years, it would have been all over."

Ralph Branca? He tells a story of how Robinson consoled him after he gave up the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" to Bobby Thomson in the one-game playoff that put the Giants in the 1951 World Series instead of the Dodgers.

Other stories about things Robinson said are now inextricably engraved into the history of the game. How he once said, "There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free." How he believed, "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

Rivera lives by that last statement, too.

He is the best closer in history, bar none. But the serenity that Rivera has displayed all these years on the mound? That is not an act. It springs from a deep place that has little to do with baseball, and more to do with who he is, and, he would say, his devout religious faith.

So when he keeps insisting with a smile that he does not expect to be sad during this, his last season, he deserves to be believed. He is, at heart, still the fisherman's son who grew up using a milk carton for a glove, a man who knows what real hard work means. And he will not be one of those old ballplayers who sits around in retirement counting his money, telling war stories and collecting backslaps. Fame and fortune have not put his view of the world so out of scale that he seeks out only famous rich people like him.

Chris Trotman/Getty ImagesRachel Robinson (Jackie's widow) and daughter Sharon heartily approve of Rivera's No. 42. They met here on Jackie Robinson Day in 2011.

Rivera wants to do even more work through his church once he retires. If you ask him, he'll say he'd like to see Pittsburgh right fielder Roberto Clemente's No. 21 retired across baseball, too, because of the groundbreaking work that Clemente did for Latino players after he arrived in the majors in 1955, eight seasons after Robinson did. Clemente was still an active player when he died at age 39 in the crash of an overloaded plane that was ferrying aid from his native Puerto Rico to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on Dec. 31, 1972. The following year, he was the first Latin player elected into the Hall of Fame.

"One day it might happen [for Clemente's 21] -- we need to continue pushing toward that," Rivera says. "I'd like to see that happen. I mean, he was a great player. And he died helping people. Imagine. Just imagine."

Rivera also has a plan for this final season of his.

In each stop of his farewell tour, he has somewhat quietly but very intentionally decided to visit with people (nearly all of them strangers) who have done something extraordinary themselves, who make the games possible on game day, or perhaps who just love their baseball team as much as he's loved playing all these years. It's a unique idea -- "I want to say thank you to the people nobody ever sees," he explains -- and he mentioned it at the same spring training news conference where he said he was retiring. He asks them questions, tells them stories about himself.

"Mariano's basic idea was he didn't want to just go to all these places one last time and go through ceremonies just to honor him," says Yankees media relations director Jason Zillo, who is helping Rivera organize things.

So far in the young season, the Yankees have traveled to Detroit and Cleveland. While in Motown, Rivera met with folks like a groundskeeper who had worked for the Tigers for more than 40 years, and a war veteran who survived several tours of duty. In Cleveland, he held a private Q&A in a room with about 30 or so people -- everyone from office workers to the press box crew, game-day laborers to a fan named John Adams who's been beating a drum to rally the Indians during games since 1973.

[+] Enlarge AP Photo/Kathy WillensRivera insists his last season will be full of nothing but joy.

"Where's the drummer?" Rivera said when he arrived.

Adams identified himself.

"You da man!" Rivera laughed. Then he told Adams how much he respected his day-in, day-out devotion to the team, and said there was something he just had to know.

"Do you start hitting the drum faster when you're upset?" Rivera needled.

"Well, you have given me so much stress over years!" Adams shot back, laughing.

Rivera says he is ready to get on to the next phase of his life, "But I'm going to enjoy this first, because you only retire once." And Robinson's widow, Rachel Robinson, 90, has said she counts herself among those who will feel a twinge when Rivera, the last of the everyday 42s, goes, even if Rivera himself keeps smiling and assuring people, "It's time."

"He carried himself with dignity and grace," Robinson recently told ESPNNewYork.com's Ian O'Connor, "and that made carrying the number a tribute to Jack … I'm very pleased with what he's done, and I'm always a little sad when someone who's accomplished so much retires."

Robinson isn't alone. But Rivera -- the ultimate closer -- keeps serenely harking back to one thought now that the curtain is about to fall: Why can't this be beautiful, too?

It figures.

Baseball has never had anyone better at knowing how to end things just right.

News Article; Springfield woman sentenced for phony tax returns

Springfield woman sentenced for phony tax returns
January 8, 2013

SPRINGFIELD — A Springfield tax preparer has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for preparing fraudulent tax returns for clients.

Federal prosecutors say 53-year-old Yolanda Mercedes Perez Lopez was also sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court to three years of probation and ordered to pay more than $46,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

Authorities say between February 2007 and April 2008, Perez Lopez prepared numerous tax returns she knew were fraudulent in order to get clients greater refunds than they were entitled to.

Perez Lopez pleaded guilty in November to charges including aiding and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns and endeavoring to interfere with the administration of Internal Revenue laws.

Authorities say Perez Lopez is an illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic.