NL DIVISION SERIES: METS v DIAMONDBACKS

October 5, 1999

John Franco

Robin Ventura

JOHN FRANCO: A little bit. That's for sure. A long time coming. This is my 16th season. My first time here. I'm just enjoying it right now. Last night was a lot of fun. Never had the opportunity to do that, and now I can say that I did.

ROBIN VENTURA: I think when we got home, we knew we were in a tough spot. I think when we won on Wednesday, you had a pretty good feeling: You had a good game; you beat a good team. And then on Thursday, you lose an extra-inning game that you feel you really need, and then you fall two behind. I think at that point, that was probably the lowest that we were, even -- even during the seven-game losing streak. I think you just -- you know you just can't believe that's happening. And I think everybody came in on Friday, you know, with just a loose attitude of, you know, play baseball and hope for the best. After Friday when the other two teams have lost and we win, now, you know, there's just a glimmer of hope. I think you know, from Thursday, and then on into Friday and Saturday, it kind of gained momentum and I think with the reaction we had on Sunday it was kind of a release of all those emotions, everything being built up. We know we hadn't really won anything except another day, but from where we were on Thursday, it was kind of a relief of emotions that had built up over a couple of weeks.

ROBIN VENTURA: Obviously, the toughest lefty to face because he throws hard and he gets a good angle on you and he has a great slider. He's obviously the toughest guy to face for any left-hander. I think for most of it you just go up there and take your best hacks and try to get the bat on it.

ROBIN VENTURA: I think we've faced some fairly good ones this year. I don't think anybody on this team necessarily thinks that we're a .500 team when we play against a left-hander. That's obviously what the numbers are during the regular season. Those numbers don't mean a whole lot once we're here. I think that everybody realizes that we're just fortunate to be here. And you feel like you've got a good team and you go into your game and feel like you're going to win it. And I think no matter who you're facing you're going out there doing what you can do to win, and we don't really care which side he throws from.

ROBIN VENTURA: I think it's unfortunate for Mets fans. We've waited so long to get in the playoffs, and for us to be starting out at 11:00, 11:15 and the game will be over by 2:30, 3 o'clock in the morning. Most of our younger fans won't be able to enjoy it. But TV has a say in everything. I think it's unfortunate that we're in that position, but I'm sure most of the fans won't mind as long as we're here playing.

ROBIN VENTURA: I think the plane ride was fairly quiet. I think you let all the emotions out when you're in the clubhouse, and you realize that game gets you into the playoffs. And I think as soon as everybody had showered and cleaned up and you get on the bus and then going to the plane, it was fairly quiet. There wasn't any card games. Everybody just fell asleep. And getting ready for today knowing you're going to get in at 3:00 in the morning, and it's usually 5:00 or 6:00 in New York so you know you're going to get some sleep. Most of the guys slept on the plane, and it wasn't really that loud.

JOHN FRANCO: The only thing that was going on on the plane last night was Big Daddy with Adam Sandler. Everybody was camped out sleeping or just relaxing. Like Robin said, we showed a lot of emotions and we did what we had to do. On the other hand, we couldn't really celebrate too much because we knew we were coming here today facing a tough team and tough pitcher. Just everybody get their rest and hopefully come out and play a good ballgame today.

ROBIN VENTURA: Quarter to 12:00.

ROBIN VENTURA: I would say going back the last five years we needed to win one game and we didn't get it done and it was pretty low. ^ the year when we lost seven in a row I was saying to myself, this can't be happening game. Up four games with 12 to go, you just start thinking, you know, maybe somebody has got the voodoo on you or something. Maybe it's just me. I never gave up. I always said to the writers in New York that as long as we're not mathematically out of it, we have a chance even though we're going to need some help, which we got. Probably the low point since I've been here in New York, this is my 10th year, I think maybe in '92 and '93 season when we were expected to win and we wound up losing like 102, 103 games. That was pretty tough. And coming to the ballpark in June when you're 20, 25 games out is not a lot of fun.

ROBIN VENTURA: I think they are a good team. They are fundamentally sound. I think that's one of Buck's trademarks is that he always had a mentally-sound team. They have obviously improved their pitching staff from last year to this year. They are a good team, and there's no -- they are no secret any more, by winning as many games as they have all year. I think again, when we get in this situation, you just throw everything out and hope you play well and, you know, hope you're the one getting the hits, and hopefully we catch all the ones that they hit. I don't think anybody goes into this automatically feeling that they are going to win because they beat you during the regular season. I think you know when you have a lot of older guys, there's a lot of experience and things that have happened. You know, Orel kept reminding every of his '88 season that the Dodgers were pretty much dominated by the Mets, and they were able to beat them in the playoffs. So you never know what's going to happen. We obviously respect them and think they are a great team. But we're in the playoffs; so we can't be horribly bad.

JOHN FRANCO: The first thing is to try to keep Tony Womack off the bases. Any time he gets on the bases, he creates havoc and will make you throw a lot of fastball, fastball counts to hitters; with Jay Bell batting second and all the way through to the 7th, 8th spot they are pretty tough. Mix it up a little bit. Keep it off-speed. But the main thing is try to keep Tony off the bases; we're probably going to have to be concerned about. It's more like us when Rickey gets on base, it creates havoc for the opposing pitcher, and you see more fastballs than used to seeing.

JOHN FRANCO: It means that we're one of four of the best -- better teams here in the National League, number one. Number two, is we're here while the other teams are at home. We're getting an opportunity to play a couple extra games and hopefully we can take advantage of it. Being here and especially for me, I've never been in this position sitting up here talking to the media. Usually, I'm home watching someone else do a press conference. To me, it means a lot to be here and just getting an opportunity to hopefully have at-bats.

JOHN FRANCO: I slept enough. I slept plenty.

ROBIN VENTURA: We got enough rest.

End of FastScripts….