MLB WORLD SERIES: MARLINS v YANKEES

October 21, 2003

Derek Jeter

Bernie Williams

DEREK JETER: Well, I mean, obviously, it wasn't ideal conditions. But it was like that for both teams. The infield was wet. It was kind of tough when you field ground balls and make the throw across the diamond. On the bases, I think they were slowing down a bit.

BERNIE WILLIAMS: We knew coming in, outfield was gonna be a little rough. Very short, the ball was gonna skip very fast. So we were aware of that situation and we were just trying to play accordingly.

BERNIE WILLIAMS: Well, I think it is a function of how many times I've been fortunate enough to be on a team to be in the postseason so many times. It feels very gratifying, obviously. And especially after this year, very frustrating having the knee surgery and then trying to heal while playing at the same time. Very exciting. But I think this team has been very good on putting personal goals aside for the benefit of the team, and I think this should be no different. I think my goal right now is just to play as good as I can so we can win the series. And this is a nice note, but still, we're still looking at the big picture here.

DEREK JETER: Beckett, he was throwing the ball extremely well. He was throwing 97, 98 miles an hour. My first at-bat, I swung at a couple pitches up in the zone. After that, I just tried to get them down. I was able to get some good pitches over the plate and fortunately found some holes. The last one, the last double, his fastball cut a little bit. I was looking for a pitch away and it moved even further away and I was fortunate to hit it down the first baseline.

DEREK JETER: Well, every situation that you can have in a postseason, me and Bernie have been through it. We've been in big games. We've won, we've lost. We've been in close games that we've won, close games that we've lost. I think the experience helps in terms of keeping your emotions under control. But we've been fortunate. I've been here eight years. We've been in the postseason all the time, every year. It definitely helps when you're in certain situations that you've seen before.

BERNIE WILLIAMS: I don't. I don't. We go out there trying to win every game that we can. Obviously, we don't plant on losing the first game. We play hard. The fact that we -- it has worked that way so far, it's kind of interesting. But we don't plan things like that here. We go out there to play every game and we try to win every game. Whatever happens, happens.

DEREK JETER: To be a good postseason team, you have to be able to separate, otherwise the first game you lose, you're gonna be eliminated. Whether you win or lose, you got to be able to come back the next day and pretty much forget about what happened. Mr. Torre is pretty good at keeping everyone loose and with that perspective, is that you take it one day at a time.

BERNIE WILLIAMS: Well, we were respecting Pierre's ability to hit the ball to the leftfield. So we were playing him very hard shade to the opposite way. I was playing almost in left-center. When he hit that ball, he got jammed a little bit and I think Karim had a better position of catching the ball. With the noise level and everything going on out there, I was not in a position to call it because I didn't think I had a clear shot at it. But I didn't hear him call it, either. So my job as a centerfielder is just trying to get it. I saw a clear path and I just tried to dive for the ball and, unfortunately, I didn't come up with it. When he scored later on, I was like, "Wow, man, this is kind of like a heart break. I should have made that catch." Hopefully, fortunately for us, we came back and now it's a thing of the past.

DEREK JETER: It was huge. I mean, you got to come up with big hits, especially two-out hits. We had some guys on base. He's been doing that all year for us. You hear Godzilla and you automatically assume he's gonna be up there swinging for the fences. The thing about him is he understands the game and he'll take a hit the other way. That was huge for us because Moose was pitching real well and he wanted to score some more runs for him.

DEREK JETER: Every time he pitches it's his last start, you know, that's what we've heard (smiling). I'm looking forward to getting his last start out of the way (laughter). Not really, though. We're pretty good at blocking those things out. He's in his last year, so everywhere we went, it was his last start here, last start there, 300th win here. This team has been pretty good about putting personal goals aside. Obviously, he's had a tremendous career and when it's over with, we'll get a chance to reflect on it.