MLB WORLD SERIES: YANKEES v BRAVES

October 22, 1999

Bobby Cox

BOBBY COX: I don't have to have it repeated. (Laughter.) You know, I didn't. But now it's kind of neat because that's what's -- that's been the most asked question, the last couple days. You know, if that means something to us. I really never thought about it, to be honest with you, at all. And it seems to be that that's going to be one of the things that's making this a good World Series. But, yeah, it would be nice. I told the writers yesterday I didn't think they gave a trophy to the team for it, but it would look good, I guess, in newsprint.

BOBBY COX: They've meant everything. Without them, we wouldn't be here today, period. I don't care who we would have added or signed or traded for, just wouldn't have worked probably without those two guys. They're both Cy Young Award winners, both outstanding individuals, outstanding professionals. And basically, both extremely healthy. John was down for a little bit this season, but he feels great now. They've logged a lot of innings, regular season, post-season, a ton of them. They're still strong. I think they're as good now as they ever were. I really believe that. John's learned to throw three-quarter, and he's been real nasty doing that. And Tommy, I think, is on top of his game right now. We had some other pitchers along the way, the Charlie Liebrandt, Steve Avery, guys like that that meant a lot, too. But these two guys have been the basis, the foundation.

BOBBY COX: Well, I'm not in to evaluating their team, publicly. We don't even do it in our meetings with the coaching staff and the scouts. So I just know that they did hit a lot of home runs, even though they don't have one individual that hit 40 or 50; they hit, I think, close to 200 home runs. That's a lot of home runs. They don't strike out much. They probably walked a lot more than they gave up. They have outstanding starting pitching and their bullpen doesn't walk anybody either. Obviously they're a great team. They've been here too many times. Some of the same faces, some of the same pitchers. You know, their pitching is outstanding, and Derek Jeter, to me, happens to be one of the top two or three ballplayers in the game, what I've seen of him.

BOBBY COX: Well, John Rocker is pretty overpowering at times. He can actually come in and strike out the side. We've had good bullpens before, I think, they never got talked about much. They were no-name bullpens. This one started out with no-names out there, too. The bigger names, the Ligtenberg and Wohlers were gone, Rudy Seanez was gone, too. And Mike Remlinger has been one of the MVPs of our team. Without him, Rock wouldn't have had all the opportunities. But Seanez and Remlinger were doing the setup a lot. When we had Alejandro Pena, I thought he was as good as it gets. He was kind of a washed up guy, a guy that the Mets let us have for nothing, the midway point or toward the end of the season, when we first got him. And we put him in the closing role, and he took off. He was really good. He was a lot like Eckersley in the fact that he never threw any balls. He was on the black. He basically pitched with a fast ball that was slightly above average with one pitch. But he could locate it.

BOBBY COX: I don't know if there's a good way. But to hit strikes, number one. He can pitch out of the strike zone pretty good, too. He can come at it from all angles. We know that. He can get you off balance, straighten you up and still make you lunge and feel for breaking stuff off the plate. You have to be patient for a ball that you can handle, for one thing. But he's tough. He didn't start the other series because, you know, he was just an average guy. This guy's really good. He's not starting tomorrow because he's average; he's really a tough guy out there. You know, really all the Cuban players that have come over, they must have great fundamental teachers over there, because they're all good. And, you know, they all know how to pitch; they know how to do things.

BOBBY COX: Chipper is an All-Star player here, well-respected in the city. He gets booed occasionally in other ballparks, I don't know for what particular reason. Derek Jeter, as I said before, he's one of the top players that I've seen in years. I haven't had a chance to see Rodriguez much at Seattle. I would be hard-pressed to say that he's that much better than this guy. This guy can really play. I know the background on Derek Jeter, I know he calls Joe Torre Mr. Torre still. That's the kind of guy -- type of kid he is. He's a guy that catches your eye the minute he steps on the field, you watch him work out, things like that.

BOBBY COX: I'm trying to think in the Minor League if I had anybody like that. Certainly I don't think I had any at the Big League level. John's a little different. He's wound pretty tight, for one thing. He tries to build up -- I think, I haven't figured it out yet, I think he tries to build up a lot of aggression when he comes in and lets that work to his advantage. You know, a lot of cases, that would work just the opposite. You'd get wild outs -- out of your rhythm, you'd overthrow the ball, overpower the hitters. He can come in and do it. He's doing the right thing in that respect. I'd like to see him calm down with the fans a little bit. That's all.

BOBBY COX: It's real good. You know, Rock is really an overpowering relief pitcher. Like I said, he come in and strike out the side pretty quick. When Rudy Seanez was well, he was carrying a lot of the load out there, and Remlinger has been great. Springer has been good. Russ has thrown the ball well. McClinchey is a kid who had very little experience, even in Triple A ball, that made our club in spring training. He actually had a very good year for the amount of experience he had. Terry Mulholland fits in there real well. That was a great trade we got going down the stretch from the Cubbies. He started and relieved. He can go both ways right now if we needed a long guy, really a long guy, he could do that. He's hard to run on. He holds the runners well just like Remlinger does. I don't know if this is the best bullpen. You know, last year we had Rocker, Seanez and Ligtenberg in that bullpen. And Mark Wohlers. But Mark was still struggling. But I'd like to see those two right-handers healthy.

BOBBY COX: We're not, as of right now, we're not going to adjust the roster. We'll still go with nine pitchers. We still have the right to change our mind by 12 o'clock tomorrow. We'll keep Fabregas as the third catcher. We're still concerned, Eddie's knee blowing out, he's going to have that taken care of as soon as the Series is over. We're a little concerned about that. We think with the DH in three of the ballparks -- three of the games at Yankee Stadium, we can get by with nine. Nine pitchers.

BOBBY COX: Against Pettitte is going to be Hernandez. Either Ozzie Guillen or Lockhart would be the -- against right-handers.

BOBBY COX: As far as being good, he's no different. I mean he was good then and he's good now. He's still a high-ball pitcher from what I see. And he cuts the ball more now I think than he did before. The ball seems to cut a lot, and it's intention. He can ride it up and away from a right-hander into a lefty. He's tough. You know, basically he just comes right at you. Kind of like Alejandro Pena did, only Alejandro didn't throw as good as this guy.

BOBBY COX: I don't have an idea who the umpires are in this series, you know, they're all capable and, you know, just -- I don't know who's umpiring. Really, it doesn't make any difference.

BOBBY COX: I think so. The rematch is good, you bet. This will be our fifth trip. We'd like to have a couple out of it. I think it makes for a great series. The Yankees have dominated that league over there for a couple of years now. We haven't completely dominated this league, but we've been one of the good teams in it for a long time, well-recognized, I think, around. And I think it makes for a great matchup. A lot of the talk about the team of the decade and all that, you know, adds to it. I don't think it hurts.

BOBBY COX: Actually, I never think about that. So, you know, I know the guys that were here, Paul Snyder, Bobby Dews, those guys have a lot of emotion for it, as well as me. But this is a team effort. John Schuerholz's ballclub, Stan Kasten and Ted Turner. You know, I never really think in terms of that type of thing, you know, becoming emotional because of the startup. But we just want to win. We don't do too much thinking over here. (Laughter.)

BOBBY COX: Yeah, especially in a big market area like that, where they want to win, too. And that's a pressure-packed place over there. And it's amazing that Joe could come back and I think he came back just right, though, he let himself heal up. Mentally he was ready. You know, Joe's a big part of their club. I never -- as managers, I don't give much credit, take much credit, anything like that. But I think Joe really has meant a lot to that organization, just the calming effect that he can have on an organization like that, with his ballclub, because it is a volatile situation over there. Has been for a long time with George because he's so hands-on and he demands the best; he demands winning; and it can get pretty touchy at times. Mr. Steinbrenner, in my mind, is one of the better owners out there. I worked for George for ten years, I like him a lot to this day. But it's tough. It's not easy as a manager.

BOBBY COX: I think right time, right place, yeah. It could have happened better.

BOBBY COX: Well, this team started out with Andres Galarraga and Javey Lopez in there, two big-time power guys. We don't have that kind of power right now. As the team stands today. So I think if those two guys were in our line-up today, you could compare it to the '96 team, as far as power goes. But the pitching is basically the same. Our bullpen, '96, you know, Wohlers was throwing the ball awfully well even though he gave up the home run. He was pretty overpowering that entire season. So we're probably, as we stand right now, a little weaker on the power end of it. Starting pitching's as good. Bullpen's as good probably.

BOBBY COX: It's a big relief, to be honest with you. You can't -- I don't think you can watch better games than divisional, and the NLCS and ALCS ball games, because they are pressure-packed. The World Series is the same way, but, you know, you don't get to this -- you don't get to the World Series unless you win. So you, you know, it's even tougher, I think, on the other ones, getting through them. And I was talking to our team today about what we talked about in spring training -- every spring is, you know, going through a pennant race, how much fun that can be, to the guys that have never been involved in one. And the excitement and the adrenaline rush that you get being in the divisional playoff and then the NLCS and then on to the World Series, and we've accomplished three of those already. So we've got one more to go. But it, you know, I can't explain the types of pressure that you feel going through those first two rounds.

BOBBY COX: I remember Charlie Hayes's swinging bunt more than the home run that set up the inning. I really do. If that hadn't happened, you know, they wouldn't have scored. So I think more about the swinging bunt.

BOBBY COX: No, no, we're ready to go. We played pretty good in that series. We had a six-hour ball game. I was talking to the coaches the other day when we finally clinched it, I didn't even realize it was 1 o'clock almost, neither did they. He went to bed last night, up at four this morning on the road. This time of year, you know, emotionally or whatever you want to call it, the energy is still there, you're never lacking for energy. And, you know, players are thinking good things. We had a good meeting and we were thinking in the right direction and they're saying good things.

BOBBY COX: Well, sure, I think so. This one was well-earned by our team. They -- some of those guys on that team really deserve a lot. Gerald Williams, I don't know if he's getting much press or not, but this guy made us go the second half. He got in there and took advantage of the fact that he had the opportunity to play a couple days in a row for some particular reason, and he started getting hits and he never stopped. He was a big spark. Nobody expected Gerald Williams to be -- at least when we traded for him, we thought we were getting a platoon-type guy who didn't hit right-handers ever, put him in against lefties and whatever. Kind of like Lockhart, when we got Keith, he came over, his reputation was as a hitter and not as a defensive player. But he played. We won 106 games last year, I think, and he was our second baseman. He's an outstanding defensive second baseman. We never really knew that. I don't know why we make mistakes like that, but we do. But Gerald Williams is a good outfielder, he runs good, he can make things exciting on the bases one way or the other at times. And -- but those types of guys are really what our club's about this season; it really is.

BOBBY COX: I don't know if they're going to pitch much to him or not. He has to be patient and hit what he can. And, again, I don't know what their strategy is, but, you know, if he gets on base, Brian Jordan was our MVP the first half of the season. Brian carried the Atlanta Braves and Chipper did more or less the second half. Jordan's hand is fine right now. I don't think Chipper feels like he has to carry us. We've, like I said, our team is made up of the Gerald Williams, Lockharts, those types of players this season. Brian has been a factor. There was a relief player from St. Louis, Jim Beauchamp met in the parking lot here after a game last season. He had been released -- we saw him during the winter, I can't recall right now -- was looking for a job during the winter. When I heard about Galarraga, I called Brian Hunter immediately because I had Brian before and I loved his attitude and wanted to give him a crack at it. One thing, he's a great defensive first baseman. He's helped out. He's helped us win ball games.

BOBBY COX: Yes. You could start any of our top four, and lead off with them and pick any one to pitch the seventh game of this World Series and you couldn't go wrong. In fact, you would have trouble -- you'd debate amongst yourselves out there who to pitch because they are good. We put them in this order, this is kind of the way it fell, and Smoltz, I guess would have been following Glavine but we put in the four hole because maybe he would relieve one inning tomorrow and pitch the fourth day with three day's rest and pitch in the seventh game, if it goes that far, with another three days' rest.

BOBBY COX: I honestly think the biggest reason is our pitching. We're in a lot of ball games. It allows some players that ordinarily wouldn't be playing, maybe, if there's something wrong with your team, to be able to get in the line-up. You're always in tight games, they start doing a little bit, they start believing in themselves rather than being on a team that's finishing fifth or sixth and the management is saying well, this guy's not going to help us get over the hill but yet they can help a club like ours. I think it's the pitching that allows these guys to, you know, to succeed.

BOBBY COX: I don't think it detracts from it at all. I know that's going to be a big deal; that's fine. I've always liked Pete Rose, I feel bad under the circumstances which he stands today. But the rules are the rules. If he's allowed to come here, that's great. And I will be the first one to go up and shake his hand. I like Pete Rose. I said about 15 years ago, if there was one player out there I'd pay a lot of money to go watch, it would be Pete Rose.

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