For Mariano Rivera, the long journey to stardom took him from poverty in Panama City fame and fortune in the South Bronx. Over the past eight years, as he has established himself as the best relief pitcher of his, and perhaps anyone’s generation, he has made the trip home many times, usually in triumph.

Yesterday, he made the trip from Panama to New York in sadness and in haste. There were somber duties to attend to back home in La Chorrera, and, as it turned out, urgent business awaiting him upon his return to Yankee Stadium.

“I wanted to stay with my family, believe me, but I have a job to do, and 24 players who were waiting for me,” Rivera said. “I’m happy to be here, too. I wanted to be here. I wanted to pitch. That’s who I am.”

What the Yankees asked of Rivera during last night’s 10-7 win over the Red Sox would have been a lot to ask of an ordinary man, but throughout his career, Mariano Rivera has demonstrated, again and again, that he is anything but ordinary.

“He’s special, there’s no doubt about that,” said Yankee manager Joe Torre. “I don’t think I trust anybody more than I trust Mariano. After what he and his wife have been through over the past three days, it’s incredible what he was able to do tonight.”

Yesterday, Mariano Rivera attended the funeral of two relatives, cousins of his wife, Clara, who had died in a freak accident in his swimming pool on Sunday. Then, he flew in a private jet back to New York, a 4 1/2 hour flight, arriving at Yankee Stadium just in time for the third inning of a game in which his services were unlikely to be required.

But as this is a Yankees-Red Sox playoff series – a typical Yankees-Red Sox series, as it turns out – the unlikely often becomes quite likely after all.

An 8-0 Yankee lead and a Mike Mussina perfect game for six innings melted away and once again, the fate of the Yankees was being held firmly in the grasp of Mariano Rivera’s right hand.

And as he had done 53 times in the regular season, once again Mariano Rivera was able to save his team, this time from what would have been a devastating, and quite possibly terminal, defeat in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.

Rivera came into the game with two outs in the eighth inning, with the Yankees now clinging to a slim 8-7 lead, and with the tying run a mere 90 feet away in the person of Boston’s David Ortiz. The Yankee closer needed a mere four pitches to quell the threat, and another 14 to put the Red Sox away in the ninth to secure the all-important Game 1 victory.

Incredibly, Rivera did not arrive at Yankee Stadium until 8:49 p.m.,more than a half-hour after the game had begun and past the point of no return for Red Sox starter Curt Schilling, who allowed six runs in three innings before being lifted by manager Terry Francona for the start of the fourth.

By the time Rivera got into uniform and joined his teammates in the bullpen, it was the fifth inning and it didn’t seem as if much relief would be called for. Yankee starter Mike Mussina was pitching a perfect game. He would not allow a hit until there was one out in the seventh, when the roof would suddenly fall in on him, and for the first time in memory, it appeared as though a Yankees-Red Sox game would fail to live up to the hype.

Then came Mussina’s collapse – he wound up allowing four runs on four hits in the inning-and a two-run homer surrendered by Tanyon Sturtze, and a terrible 2/3 of an inning by Tom Gordon, and suddenly, it was Rivera Time, and the chants that had begun with his first appearance in the bullpen – “Ma-Ree-Ann-Oh!” – grew in intensity, as befitting the situation.

“I didn’t even get to see him until I shook his hand at the end of the game,” Torre said. “But Mel (Stottlemyre) had gone into the clubhouse and talked to him and he said, ‘I’m fine, I’m ready to go.’ You certainly don’t want to go to him in the eighth inning, but we had no choice. Maybe just being out there in uniform was a way for him to hide for an hour or so.”‘

Performing before an audience of 56,000,Rivera found the strength to do something he had been unable to do twice in key situations this season, namely, slam the door on the potent Red Sox lineup.

“It was tough, leaving my family there,” Rivera acknowledged. “The funeral, and then five hours on the plane. I’m tired, but my mind keeps going. My fans and my teammates helped me out big time. I was trying to do everything as good as possible.”

The drama of Rivera’s appearance and the efficiency of his performance overshadowed some truly astounding achievements, notably Mussina’s outing, the Red Sox resilience, and most of all, the hitting of Hideki Matsui, who drove in five runs and scored two more.

In the end, the game may have belonged to the Yankees, but the night belonged to Rivera. Never had the trip from Panama to New York seemed so long, so lonely, and so ultimately rewarding.

Mr. Matthews is the host of the “Wally and the Keeg” sports talk show heard Monday-Friday from 4-7 p.m.