NL DIVISION SERIES: ASTROS v BRAVES

October 11, 2004

Phil Garner

PHIL GARNER: Well, the Astros and the Astro community are very sad. Ken was a favorite in Houston, a favorite among the players. Guys that played with him - and I actually coached him my first year of coaching - wonderful, wonderful guy. In the end, I think probably some of the attributes that we loved about him were things he couldn't control himself, and that was his intense competitiveness, his desire to be the best. I think he carried that to the steroid use. But he had such a determination that I think maybe when he got into drugs, it was that he couldn't stop, and that's unfortunate. It's a shame. I don't know if this had any direct relation to it. But there were a lot of people that gave him a lot of good advice, a lot of people loved him in our area, and I think Jeff and Craig probably saved his life the first time around. It's unfortunate that he made wrong choices. So we're sad.

PHIL GARNER: We have not done anything as a team. I've spoken to Jeff (Bagwell), Craig (Biggio) and Brad Ausmus, who I think knew him the best on our team. It's not something that was unexpected. They were fully aware of the risks that Camy was running with his lifestyle. They knew him the best. They were absolutely closest. I have not planned anything. I am not aware if they have planned anything either. What was the other part of the question?

PHIL GARNER: We'd all like for him to be remembered as a competitive, hard-nosed guy that would just absolutely play through anything. We'd like everybody in our sport to be that way. That's how I'd like him to be remembered. He was a winner. He was a winner. He was a winner all the way to the World Series. I think he was a big kid in a man's body, just a real big kid in a man's body.

PHIL GARNER: That's an assumption I'm not willing to make, that steroids did lead to his death. I can't answer the second part of the question because I'm not totally in agreement with the first part. I do think steroids are a problem. I have some knowledge of it, I have studied a little bit. I think it's very risky. I would hope we're able to eliminate it all the way in baseball. I think those that might have used it or might have thought about it, I think that a great deal of it has been taken out. Has it been eradicated, I don't know that. But clearly in my mind it may not be in use as much as it was. I would think that in Caminiti's story, you've got to look at that, and I think you've got to consider if that was a factor and try to determine. I think the experts need to determine that; I couldn't tell you that.

PHIL GARNER: No. When you know the outcome, obviously, a change, it would be stupid not to. I have not heard anything yet that I did not think about prior to making the moves. Unfortunately, it didn't work out the way I wanted it to. I feel like in this game, when you've considered all things, there's not bad moves, there are just moves that don't work out the way you want them to sometimes. The scenarios I had thought out actually worked out. The scenario that I didn't want to happen was that we give up the winning run in the ninth inning. I felt that we would come back. So we didn't, and we lose a ballgame, and it looked bad. But I've managed aggressively. I've managed a little bit out of the box in a lot of situations. In the beginning, when I first came into Houston, some of them didn't work. They began to work in the latter part of the year. In yesterday's game it didn't work out the way I'd want it to, but I don't think it's a good time to change.

PHIL GARNER: Well, in the sense that we're rested, it would be. Atlanta's bullpen has pitched very well against us. I would hope that we'd get into that bullpen and do some damage to it a little bit. But our bullpen is rested. Obviously, I'd just as soon see Roy pitch a nine-inning shutout. That would be nice. But our bullpen's okay. If we need to go to them, we can go to them with confidence that they certainly haven't been over-used and they're rested.

PHIL GARNER: Well, I hadn't actually thought of that, to be honest with you. I hadn't looked at it that way, and I'm not going to now that you bring that up.