MLB WORLD SERIES: INDIANS v MARLINS

October 20, 1997

Mike Hargrove

MIKE HARGROVE: I've never been accused of being brilliant.

MIKE HARGROVE: Probably the major effect is the grip the pitcher will have on the ball. Cold weather tends to dry out your hands and fingers a lot more than warm weather will, obviously. And the pitcher's grip on the ball can be affected and also hitting a baseball in cold weather is not a lot of fun. If you don't just hit it right it hurts. It's amazing how warm you get when you get into a competitive situation. So I think probably the only ones that are going to be cold tomorrow night are us that are sitting back and watching.

MIKE HARGROVE: No, I don't. I did last night a little bit, but he worked out today and didn't show any ill effects, and the trainers didn't mention anything to me about it, so he's okay.

MIKE HARGROVE: I really believe that we haven't played in any colder weather, really, than the Marlins have the last couple of months. This is the first time that we've run into cold weather since April, so I don't see it being an advantage or disadvantage for anybody. As far as the Latin players adjusting to the cold, any worse than -- or more slowly than anybody else, I don't put a whole lot into that. I found that this kind of weather is kind of a mind over matter. If you don't mind, it really doesn't matter. So it's something that's there, we deal with it, it's part of it and we go on. But you don't dwell on it.

MIKE HARGROVE: I'm human like anybody else, I have an ego. I don't think it's any more gratifying, I think it's just a validation of what I felt for a long time. So, yeah, you like to get credit for what goes right. You hate to get credit for what goes wrong. It still comes down to it's all about the game. The players play the game, and it should be about the players.

MIKE HARGROVE: I don't think there's any way that you really can predict anything like that with any certainty. You look at -- everything is built in this game on statistics and track records. You look at his track record and his track record says he should do this, because he's done it in the past. So I don't think it should surprise any of us. Marquis Grissom is a winner, has been a winner all along. We heard that from the Braves people when the trade was made. He's certainly not disappointed us at all. It took him a while to adjust to a new town, a new league and new teammates. But I have never seen anybody work harder at being a good player than Marquis Grissom.

MIKE HARGROVE: Tomorrow night Bip Roberts will play in left field. When I moved Marquis out of the lead-off spot, he took it very well. His reaction was whatever it took for the team to be better and he kept telling me over and over that he would be good for us before it was all over with, and he was certainly right.

MIKE HARGROVE: I think the biggest thing -- it's nice to hear Jimmy say that. The thing that probably has impressed me more about Marquis Grissom than anything else, is that the numerous times that he could have griped and moaned about what was going on and about him being moved out of the number one spot, and he never -- I never heard him complain one time or offer an excuse. It was always I'll get it together, I'm going to keep working at it. And I never saw him hang his head. I never saw him do anything -- Marquis Grissom exhibited every trait you'd ever want to see out of a winner. And it's really -- that's about as well as I could describe it or explain it. You wish everybody that you ever come in contact with could be like Marquis Grissom.

MIKE HARGROVE: No, I think there is. And from my own experience that you want -- I try to get ahead in the count anyway. When you get ahead in the count and hit deep in the count, you're a good hitter, so you're trying to do that anyway. But I've really found in playing in cold weather, that players don't think about it, they don't -- the good ones don't allow the weather conditions to dictate how they play. So I really don't think that the weather is going to be -- as I said, an advantage or disadvantage to either team.

MIKE HARGROVE: Well, it's certainly not good for your stomach lining doing it that way. But hopefully history will keep repeating itself. Gosh, whether we're going to win it or not, I do not know. But I do know that we sure want to and we'll play very hard to accomplish that, just like the Marlins have the same goal. But I wouldn't recommend to another team to lose the first game of a series, it just is not good for your mental health at all.

MIKE HARGROVE: Our younger players, I don't think we need to tone down any of their excitement, because they should be excited. Our veteran people are excited, too, it exhibits itself in different ways. So I don't think that's a problem, at all. Jim Thome is a good athlete. And being a good athlete with talent, those types of people are able to adjust and to adapt to new situations fairly quickly and fairly well and Jimmy has done that. Jimmy has good hands. There are times he'll make the wrong play at first base, but that's due to his inexperience at first base. But Jimmy has done a tremendous job and learns more and more every day. I'm very happy with Jim Thome at first base.

MIKE HARGROVE: My theory, you combine it with 50 cents might get you a cup of coffee in most places, you talk about people that can turn their game up a notch, I think Marquis does this, and from a mental side of it. This game at this level is so dependent -- the important factor is the mental side is just tremendously important. And I see good players are able to really focus in and zone in on what it is they're trying to accomplish. And they're able to let their talent work for them, instead of trying to make it work. That's my opinion, my theory.

MIKE HARGROVE: We've got a good offensive ball club, and they've got good pitchers, we just happened to hit them the last two nights where they weren't standing. Especially last night -- Kevin Brown is a ground ball pitcher, we hit ground balls that got through, and some of them came in on key situations, that's just the way the game goes. If you've got good hitters and put the ball in play you've got a chance for good things to happen. But good pitching will predominantly beat good hitting.

MIKE HARGROVE: No. Staying at the beach might have been one of things. I didn't see anything that would make me say this could only happen in Florida, no.

MIKE HARGROVE: No, not really, to tell you the truth. I really believe in this team from day one. I kept waiting for the ball club to come around and start playing consistently well, and I kept believing and saying as soon as our pitching settles in we'll be okay, and that turned out to be the case. But there was never a point in time that I never thought it wasn't possible. There were a couple of points where I thought if this doesn't break the right way, we're in trouble, sure, I'm not stupid. But there never was a time that I quit believing that this team had every chance in the world to be a good team.

MIKE HARGROVE: The Al Leiter we knew in the American League, when he pitched for Toronto, was very difficult for us to hit. He threw a lot of strikes, and from what I heard about Al in the National League, especially this year, is that he's had a little bit of trouble throwing strikes at times. But he's still a very, very effective and good pitcher. He's one of the new left-handers that can really power up right-hand hitters inside and get them out.

MIKE HARGROVE: Not very well. It's a manager's job to imagine the worst. That pretty much -- it's the manager's job to imagine the worst, prepare to not let that happen, and so even with a five-run lead going into the 9th inning, I was still very much afraid. So but once we got the first two outs I felt a lot better.

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