MLB WORLD SERIES: GIANTS v ANGELS

October 27, 2002

Dave Righetti

DAVE RIGHETTI: Me (laughter). Probably Russ. But, then again, he'll probably put his cleats on for us, too. So just about everybody.

DAVE RIGHETTI: For that case, that's for other people to handle some other time. I heard talk the other day, we were talking about moving the Division Series up to seven games, things like that. For me, the players, they're going to have to expand rosters if they do that. There's no question, it's a long season for these guys. Let's face it, in the last, what, 15, 20 years, it's no longer the starting pitchers that are going on two, three days rest, like Koufax, those guys, now you're having relief pitchers an awful lot, whether it's Rivera, Rodriguez, Mendoza with the Yankees. These guys are being pitched. In fact, they've added on years to their career because of the times they've been in the playoffs. The relievers are taking on the big brunt of all this.

DAVE RIGHETTI: Oh, quite a bit. We've been asked that pretty much - I don't mean to be funny - but it's pretty much been a question asked almost every single day this season, including spring training. It's disturbing sometimes. It's just a wave of the way things are going these days in the game. It's not just Dusty's situation, it's all over the game, in most sports, whether it's football today or college or anything. The guy has meant so much to the city, the area, the last 10 years of managing this ballclub. He's done a terrific job. He's brought a lot of spirit. The organization has definitely prospered because of Dusty Baker. If that day comes, which I'm truly honest, I don't know, it would be very sad.

DAVE RIGHETTI: Yeah, I think so. I really do. I know it doesn't happen very often under the national spotlight. When we lose, we lose hard (laughter). I'm honest, we lose very tough ballgames. Very rarely do we get blown out. We have a tendency to be hard on ourselves. It's kind of our motto: we don't do things easy. This is kind of par for the course. I know it sounds strange because of last night. But our guys won't be afraid to go out there and play ball today, that's for sure.

DAVE RIGHETTI: Well, first thing I remember is Russ Hodges, Lon, all the M's: Mays, Marichal, McCovey, Jim Ray Hart, all these people. You grow up in the Bay Area. Over on the Oakland side was Catfish, Vida, Reggie. It was a wonderful way to grow up as a kid to watch baseball in the Bay Area. They weren't on TV, but we listened to them on the radio. Up until, I really wasn't into my teens, did I realize that my dad was a ball player, ended up playing with the San Francisco Seals for a couple years. My grandparents s grew up in the city. My grandfather grew up in Italy, but my grandmother grew up in the city and lived down tthe street from Mrs. Lazzeri. The Italian neighborhood, the Yankees, the Giants, what have you, it's ingrained in that area. You take a special pride in it. It would take forever. I could link you up with a lot of different names. It's just all good. It's fun to be a part of it.

DAVE RIGHETTI: I don't think it's good anywhere. From my background, anybody here followed my career through the '80s with the Yankees, knows I played for probably anywhere from a dozen to 18 different managers, Billy Martin was there four times, Lou was there a couple times, Gene Michael. Stability is what you need. For me, that's what's happened in New York now with Joe Torre's situation, settled that organization as far as I'm concerned. I think you need that everywhere. The successful teams, Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa, people stay in place a while, your point gets across, so to speak, guys know how to manage over long periods of time. You can always bring in the guy to get the quick fix, but he's not going to be any good for you the next year or two years down the road. You might have some blown-out players or hearts in the dust. These guys tend to bring out the best in real ball players over periods of time. I think that's real important.

DAVE RIGHETTI: No. We lost in 1981 to the Dodgers in Game 6. Yeah, this is my first Game 7, obviously. To me, it's where you want to be. If you're a coach, you want to be in the World Series, and you want to have a chance to win it. Today's a definite chance to win it. A tie-breaking game is where it's all at. We know it's all or nothing. We also know it could last a hell of a lot longer than nine innings, too (laughter). That's why he asked me earlier. The way things are going these days, it's amazing we didn't come back last night, even though we all felt we were going to get a run somehow, just the way things go these days.

DAVE RIGHETTI: You know, it's funny, I'm not trying to slight -- I played New York, so I know I went through the media capital. When I was a kid, they asked me if I wanted to play Montreal or the Dodgers. I said, "Anybody." It would be a great story to play somebody from Canada, so it would be a worldwide thing. "Don't you want to play for the Dodgers?" "I don't want to wish for too much." I understand the media markets are there. I'm proud to be a part of it. I knew we were going to put on a show, these two teams. I didn't know what kind of show it was going to turn out to be. There's just way too many good players and way too many good stories for everybody to write. Once they got here and saw these players, got past, obviously, Barry, Dusty's situation as a manager, maybe past the rally monkey thing, got to know Spiezio, Shawon Dunston, people like that, to me, that's what it's all about. Sometimes it takes seven games to bring all that out. I think baseball, it's been a tough year in a strange way, but I haven't read anything about a strike in at least two months now, so I think it's a wonderful series.

DAVE RIGHETTI: No, I haven't. They asked me the other day when we won in San Francisco. I felt good about the way we played our last home game for the fans. But we know we had work to be done. I couldn't stop to enjoy it because I knew not only -- see, once you get to a certain point, you're expected to win, regardless if you're an underdog. Once you've proven you can play in this series, you need to win. You need to go out there and think about winning, not about looking good, trying to hide. To me, you have to keep playing hard and strive to win the ballgames, no matter what the situation is. Under those circumstances, I can't reflect very often. Sorry.