SPRINT TO FINISH: Mariano Rivera jogs onto the field during yesterday’s spring training game vs. the Braves after announcing his intentions to retire at the end of the season. (
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TAMPA — Mariano Rivera checked the gas gauge, saw the needle near empty and decided a marvelous journey will end whenever the final out of the coming season is logged.
“Now is the time. The tank is almost empty,’’ Rivera said yesterday morning when he announced the upcoming season would be the end of an 18-year career that will never be matched. “The little gas that I have left is for this year. There is nothing left. I did everything and I am proud of it.’’
Rivera admitted if he hadn’t torn the ACL in his right knee last May, 2012 would have been it for the game’s all-time saves leader. However, he wasn’t going to sign off on a Hall of Fame career by being carted out of Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium.
“I don’t want to leave home, I want to stay home,’’ Rivera said. “But I know I have a job to do and I am here to do the best.’’
PHOTOS: YANKEES SPRING TRAINING
Rivera said his desire to compete hasn’t evaporated, but time away from his family led to his decision that, he said, was made before spring training opened.
“I will never stop missing the game, the action and the field,’’ Rivera said. “The traveling and the hotels, I say, ‘No more.’’’
Rivera’s press conference was attended by every Yankees uniform in camp, general partner Hal Steinbrenner, executive vice president Felix Lopez, general manager Brian Cashman and assistant GM Jean Afterman.
All got a chuckle out of Rivera starting the press conference by jokingly thanking Cashman for a two-year contract extension. Rivera said he was moved that every player in camp attended his announcement.
With Andy Pettitte, who tried retirement for one season and came back to pitch, sitting nearby, Rivera was asked about the possibility he could change his mind.
“I have few bullets left and I am going to use them this year,’’ said Rivera, who will start his final season with 608 regular-season saves and a record 42 in the postseason. “I know after this year you won’t see me on the field unless I am doing something else than playing baseball.
“It’s not in me anymore. I did what I love. I did it with passion, but after this year I won’t do it for the wrong reasons. I don’t want to do it for money or traveling. I want to close the door and do what’s next.’’
Rivera said he has an interest in staying close to the game by tutoring minor league players and said he doesn’t agree he is the best ever to close.
“I don’t feel that I am the greatest of all time,’’ he said. “I am a team player, and if it wasn’t for my teammates I never would have had the opportunity. I would love to be remembered as a player who was always there for others, trying to make others better. That is the legacy I want to leave, that I was there for others.”
Since 1996, Rivera has been there for the Yankees, their closer since 1997. And to think George Steinbrenner had to be talked out of trading Rivera to Seattle for shortstop Felix Fermin in 1996 because The Boss was being told Derek Jeter wasn’t ready for the big leagues.
Jeter certainly has had much to do with the Yankees winning five World Series in the last 16 years. Yet the Yankees’ MVP across those seasons has been Rivera.
Now, the end is upon him and Rivera knows the way he wants to exit.
“The last game I hope is the last pitch of the World Series,’’ Rivera said. “That is how I envision my last game.’’
george.king@nypost.com