COOPERSTOWN — There are many different roads to the Hall of Fame. This one started by not knowing how to get to Eastchester.
There was the young pitcher from Panama sitting in the Yankees clubhouse back in 1995. He was scheduled to see his agent in Eastchester to find an apartment, but did not speak the language and had no idea how to get there from Yankee Stadium.
Joe Fosina, the reconditioner of Yankees uniforms since 1978, essentially the team’s tailor, lived in New Rochelle, about 10 minutes from where the rookie was supposed to go. The clubhouse manager asked Fosina to take the kid, Mariano Rivera, outside to get a cab just to make sure the cabbie knew where he was going.