AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: ANGELS v TWINS

October 12, 2002

Ron Gardenhire

RON GARDENHIRE: Terry and I, we were over in the Mets organization together. I was a player. He was over with them, I knew him a little bit over there. But I've been with this organization, how many years, since '87, I came over here as a player and got a chance to meet him. He was a scout, scouting director. Then, as a coach, under T.K. I got to know him pretty good. He treats people with respect. He knows the game. He works very, very hard at it. He's given me this opportunity. He's believed in me. We have a great relationship. He wants me to run the baseball. On the field. The team, he doesn't want any input in who's going to pitch, who's going to DH. Once we decide on the team, that's my job to do the line-up. That's what a manager needs. You need a general manager to let you do your job out there. I've asked him many times, "What do you think," and he's said, "That's not my department." That's pretty good for a general manager.

RON GARDENHIRE: Sure, you always twist and turn with everything. I mean, you try to figure out ways you could have attacked, maybe you could have done something different. Bottom line is we didn't score any runs, we didn't score enough runs. I thought that was a great baseball game. We pitched well. We had some opportunities to score, but not very many. We missed some base hits that we could have got. I thought we did pretty much everything right. We just didn't score enough runs. Right now, we have to get people clicking better in the middle of the line-up, drive some runs and we'll be better. Good pitching has a tendency to stop offense. I think theirs has done that to ours and ours has done that to theirs. It's going to come down to who gets the base hits. They got it, scored a run last night, big home run, we didn't. Sure, you toss and turn. It's not easy. My hair wasn't gray before this season, I'll tell you that right now. It was curly white. Well, not really.

RON GARDENHIRE: How long do you have...? (Smiling). You know what our situation's been through in Minnesota.

RON GARDENHIRE: Personally, for me, this was something I've been looking forward to. I'd been interviewed a few times. Wanted an opportunity to manage in the Major Leagues. You never know if you're going to get that opportunity. I interviewed a few times. Being under T.K. and watching how he's done things for all these years, knowing, in my opinion, he's one of the best managers in the game, if not the best, as far as the whole game. And being able to handle people and the game. So, I thought I'd learned a lot underneath him. I thought this would -- is something I would like to try. It's a little different than I thought. You deal with a lot of other things other than baseball, as a manager. But, it's also everything I thought it would be as far as the baseball and how good you feel when you see your players going out and giving everything they have. Knowing that, that's all you ask for. So, there's some good and bad with it, but the good really outshines the bad.

RON GARDENHIRE: Well, we have a young baseball team. For the most part. A loose clubhouse, that's the only way you're supposed to play this game. I mean, you look at all the people, they say, "Man, I wish I could do what you're doing. " That's exactly right. You have to appreciate that you're doing something you should enjoy all the time, you should be happy you're in the clubhouse. You won't get to stay there that long, just doesn't happen. Enjoy what you're doing, have some fun in the clubhouse and let's go out and play the game. That's what we talk about here, enjoying, going out and remember everything that goes on on a baseball field. I want my players, not only that they're here, we want to win. We really want to win. But I want them to remember this. This is the time of their lives. This is what it's all about. I want them to remember this. So if I go out and say, "Music off," and start hammering them, that's not what we've done all year. We're going to do everything we've done all year and we'll take our chances with our baseball team.

RON GARDENHIRE: Well, any time you're dealing with an elbow, sure it was scary. He wanted second opinions. That gets really scary. As we went along, we knew he was frustrated, we were hoping he would get to the point where he could work through some things. Finally, he did. I feel he's feeling pretty good now. He's throwing the ball well. I think he's over that, hopefully. At least he says he is, and that's the only thing a manager can go by. Looks like he's back to the old Joe Mays that we saw before.

RON GARDENHIRE: Well, I think we had Paul Molitor also doing the same thing. I think what happens there, you've got your scouts that go out and they do the numbers things. They're really good at what they do. Believe me, they're as detailed as you can possibly be about everything that goes on in a game. But when you get a man like T.K. or Paul Molitor that's been out on the field, they see the game from a different perspective. He's like managing in the stands. He throws some things at you, that's pretty good. That's what he did, he gave us a big Yankee report, so Anaheim took care of that. I got it for next year when we play the Yankees. Molly gave us a great scoop on Oakland, as good as you can get. Some really good information. Different perspectives from scouts to, like, T.K. and Molly. It's pretty good. It's a really -- it's a good advantage to have. To have T.K. come in my office all the time and second-guess me and say, "Why did you do that?" That's great. That's beautiful.