Meredith Marakovits involved in coverage of sad night for Yankee fans

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/ FROM KEITH GROLLER Meredith Marakovits is just about a month into her new job as the Yankees beat reporter for the YES Network and she got a lot of attention late Thursday night when media filed into the Yankees clubhouse for news about star reliever Mariano Rivera. YES always does postgame interviews, but this session drew the attention of the entire Baseball Nation as people waited confirmation on the rumored torn ACL of Rivera, an injury that could have ended the career of one of the greatest Yankees of all time. Marakovits, a Northampton native and Central Catholic graduate, asked manager Joe Girardi the first question where he revealed that it was a torn ACL. She also asked several other good questions, showing great sensitivity to the situation. Short of learning that someone just died, this was the most sober clubhouse you'll ever witness in baseball and it had to be a difficult task for Marakovits to get the information everyone wanted to know while also being careful not to offend anyone with an inappropriate question. She was also there when Rivera met the press and you could again sense the emotion as Rivera fought back tears. He told Marakovits that he had no regrets and that he had been shagging flyballs for years and enjoyed it, and if he had to do it all over again, he would still do the same thing. Rivera stopped short of saying his career was over and he was just trying to come to terms with his injury and long road to recovery. But obviously, that's what everyone wanted to know. Marakovits also asked Rivera about going back to New York and he said he wanted to stay with the team in KC for a few days. Marakovits was excited about the Yankees gig when I talked to her last month, and she knew that she was on the biggest stage of her career. But on Thursday night, she was involved in one of the biggest stories of this -- or any recent -- Yankee season and she gave a great accounting of herself. And look for her to be front and center even more on YES as this story unfolds.