AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: RED SOX v YANKEES

October 8, 2003

Grady Little

GRADY LITTLE: None whatsoever. This guy's shoulder, he's had a lot of tenderness with it during this last series. We can't go into a series like this with a pitcher that's going to be iffy every day. This is way too important, and we need all of the heads we can get down there some nights, as we all know. We can't go into this series with a guy that's not 100%.

GRADY LITTLE: We're pretty even. Both teams, they are good ballclubs. Both of them like to battle. Both of them think they can win, and that's a pretty vital characteristic.

GRADY LITTLE: We've done nothing different during the post-season that we haven't had to do all season long. We've had a lot of occasions where we've had to come back from some awfully tough losses. We've had a lot of occasions where we've had to come back from some awfully good wins, and each day, it's different. In this post-season, we've reacted no differently than we have all season long.

GRADY LITTLE: It's a combination of the fact that Johnny Damon is not hurt nearly as seriously as he could have been. We're still unsure exactly when he'll be back, but that's a big part of it. And the other big part of it is the team that we're playing is the New York Yankees and we might need all of the pitching that we can find.

GRADY LITTLE: That's our plan right now. Anything could change between now and then, but right now we are going with Jeff Suppan as our long man out of the bullpen and Burkett as our fourth game starter, but anything could change.

GRADY LITTLE: Johnny suffered a grade-two concussion and he's back with the ballclub today. He's in the clubhouse. He's still groggy. He's had very little sleep since the incident in Oakland. There's no way he will see any action in these two games here in New York. He may be ready to go Saturday but that will be determined by how he feels at that time. But the first two games are out of the question.

GRADY LITTLE: I think it's 100% attributed to our success. That's one of the big reasons why we answered the question earlier; how do we continue to come back day-in and day-out. How do we perform the way we do. It's all about the character of this team. There's a lot of talent in the Major Leagues, but it takes a lot of character to get done what we are trying to do.

GRADY LITTLE: That's a tough question for me to answer, to tell you specifically what the reason is. If we knew that reason, then we will do whatever we can to adjust and make it where he would pitch good everywhere. It's just one of those things, it's one of those seasons where he's been -- his numbers are awfully good at home. He pitches the same way wherever we go, to tell you the truth. He's got good stuff. He has a chance to win every time he takes the ball.

GRADY LITTLE: We monitor everything we do with these guys. The workload that he had on him there in Game 5 was no more than -- it's probably less than he would do on a normal workday, and that's usually two days before his next start. We have no concern for that. This guy is a workhorse anyway. But I'm not going to sit there and tell you we are going to do that a lot in this series.

GRADY LITTLE: Burkett had an awfully good game against the Yankees, too, later in the season, can you remember that?

GRADY LITTLE: But you have to look at his age and see what decade a lot of those numbers came from. I'm talking a game (laughter) -- John Burkett pitches a game as well as anybody against the Yankees this year just as Suppan.

GRADY LITTLE: Grady's philosophy is pretty much however good my players are, that's how good I'll be that night. We adjust to what's going on on the field. We don't have a set way or a locked-in way that we are going to do it. We take the situation as it's occurring at the time, and we do a lot of adjusting to that.

GRADY LITTLE: We've heard a lot about it. (Laughter.) I'm not really a big believer in the "Curse of the Bambino." Each year is different. This club has been through a lot of ownership changes. It's been through a lot of manager changes and certainly a lot of personnel changes. I don't know, there's a few constants over there in New England, but I don't think we're battling the Curse of the Bambino here. We're battling the New York Yankees and this group of renegades that I'm putting out on the field, they don't care. They care about their Harley Davidson's running good enough, that they won't run off the Tobin Bridge over there in Boston and playing baseball. They are playing hard. That's all I ask of them is to come out on the field, play hard. We don't put a whole lot of efforts concerning ourselves with the Bambino.