MLB WORLD SERIES: YANKEES v DIAMONDBACKS

October 28, 2001

Brian Anderson

BRIAN ANDERSON: I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's anything that you can answer. I mean, it just -- you know, obviously I realize what's at stake and how big this is. Game 3 in any series, especially a seven-game series is a pivotal game, whether you are up 2-0, you know, the other team is going to be scraping hard to not go down 3-0 and if it's 1-1 series, then, obviously, they want to jump up 2-1. You know it's a big game, but, I mean, I really don't have an answer for that. I just look at it as a great opportunity and I think that, you know, some of the -- some of the calm comes from preparing yourself. You know, prepare your body prepare your mind, prepare a game plan and outside of that, that's all you can do. Go out that night and you try to execute it. But me getting worked up and nervous, you know, taking that approach today is not going to do anything to help me on Tuesday night so I'm going to enjoy the -- everything that surrounds that game, enjoy the time before it and make sure that I'm ready for when that bell rings.

BRIAN ANDERSON: There were a bunch of them. Let's see I missed my first spring training start with -- I was sick, had about 104-degree fever. Then there was the strained ankle on a baserunning drill. Then bunted a ball, John Olerud fielded it, threw a -- throw to first, hit me in the back of the left elbow so I had to come out of that game. Then I cut my finger, open pitching finger, middle finger on a cologne bottle trying to take the lid off and cut my finger. Pitched the next day but it was not a very good start and then my last spring training start, took a line drive off the thumb from Glenallen Hill and then two starts into the season went on the DL with a strained back which was strange because I had never had a back problem before. And then strained a groin, not too long ever after that came back, pitched and then strained a groin. Then finally made it back after that. On top of that was plenty of ineffectiveness.

BRIAN ANDERSON: I would not say that. You know, you play sports long enough you realize you are going to play dinged up, little injuries, things you have to compensate for. Certainly, I had my fair share, seemed like in spring training every start something else happened but I was still healthy enough to go out there and take the ball, but like I said, you have to play hurt sometime. When I came back from the injuries, I was healthy. I was not -- my body was not bothering me at that point. I came back and was ready to go, but, you know, in those times that I was pitching healthy I just was not pitching well. I had some games with I threw well and didn't have anything to show for it and I had dozens of games where I got my teeth kicked in and that's obviously what led me to being taken out of the rotation, which you can't blame anybody for but the guy who is sitting up here.

BRIAN ANDERSON: I mean, I don't know about help, but I think it gives you the chance to cope with it. The fans there are like none other. New York fans are special and I love, whenever we go into New York, obviously for us it's to play the Mets, but I love going in there because they are -- they are -- they can be obnoxious. They may be mean but they are witty. They come up with funny things and things that you could be out there warming up for a game and they say something that it's a slam on you or your family or whoever else they want to take a shot at, it's funny, but you don't want them to see you laughing at it because you are supposed to be getting locked in for a game. But it's a great place to play, as a professional athlete to go into New York and play and compete against a New York team is unlike no other experience that you can have and with a game of this magnitude and it being a World Series, it's going to be a zoo. Sometimes you can't respond to them which is the great thing about those fans. They can get on you -- if you turn around and you're getting on them back, it's just going to snow ball, but sometimes it's funny and they will be getting all over and you-- you'll laugh and say, "That was a good one, " or whatever you say to them and they immediately back off. There's a respect factor there and they understand the game and they understand what's at stake and it's a great place to play. They are not going to back off, I'm sure. That's not going to happen. But they are great fans to play in front of.

BRIAN ANDERSON: Just that it's a long time in between starts. (Laughs) it's been a long time. It does not seem like it's been that long but it's going to be almost two months, and, you know, not really. I'm going to prepare myself to go as long as the team needs me to go, and, you know, there's no saving up. I could be tired in a couple weeks. But, you know, everything that my mind and body and arm have to offer and everything that's involved will be left out on that field Tuesday night. And like I said, I plan to go as deep as the team needs.

BRIAN ANDERSON: Well, I'll give you the semi-long story. It was New Year's Eve of -- well New Year's Day of the 1983-84 season and my parents had gone to some friends of theirs house to spends the holidays together and their kids were very young and I had nothing to do. So I was watching the national championship game between Nebraska and Miami. It was Turner Gil and the scoring explosion of '83 against Bernie Kosar and coming from Big-10 country I had never seen the option run or anything like that. We saw handoff over tackle right in between the guard and that was all Big-10 did and still do. (Laughter.) Except for a few teams, Purdue and Northwestern. It was one of those things where I saw them running the option, never seen that before and started rooting for Nebraska. It came down to the end of the game and they scored a touchdown late to make it 31-30. And they were No. 1 at the time, so if they tied, they would at least share for the National Championship, and Tom Osborne elected to go for the two points and go for the win. You know, I like things like that. That's the kind of personality I have. I love the gutsy call like that. When he did that, I remember him saying after the game, he said, "I told our guys that if we were going to win a National Championship we were going to win it; we were not going to tie for it." I thought that that was the gutsiest thing I had ever seen, and literally a fan was born that night. So ever since then it has snowballed. And now with all of the great media outlets and satellite dishes, you can see just about every game, so that helps, too.

BRIAN ANDERSON: It's a matchup you can almost expect. You look at what he did this year and he's one of the premiere pitchers that the game has ever seen. So I was kind of figuring that the week in between, after BB told me that I was going to get the start, I was thinking about who they might start and, you know, of course, Roger falls on Game 3. And I just kind of chuckled to myself, like, "Well it figures. If you're going to get a start, first one in, first game in Yankee Stadium in this series, you might as well get Rocket." You know, all of the things he's accomplished, it is; it's going to be a thrill to go out there. Obviously, I'm not facing him, so my job is to get out the Yankee hitters, but to share the mound with him in this big of a game, that is something special.

BRIAN ANDERSON: I think the No. 1 thing I remember is disappointing. We had a lead in the ninth inning of Game 7. You know, you don't realize how -- you might never get back to that point again, to be three outs away from being World Champs. It all happened so quickly that we lost the lead and ended up losing the game that you didn't get a chance to really, you know, kind of assess your feelings on it until later. Then all of a sudden it was like, man, you might never get back there. And then all of a sudden you are taken by an expansion team and you're thinking, "I might never make it." But the way this thing worked out, coming out to the desert, and you know that you are not going to be a very good team right off the bat. The one thing you did know is the people we had in charge here, notably Jerry Colangelo, he's a winner and he demands that of the players that he has on his teams. So you know that if it was possible to get back there with this franchise, this would be where it would happen, because of him. Because you knew he would go out and do whatever it takes to put a quality product on the field and get quality guys out here to compete and contend every year. And obviously, that happened. In the second year, we won the division, 100 games and go to the playoffs. But once you get into the playoffs, you can still have a great team, but you've still got to win and you've got to beat a lot of other good teams. It's been very satisfying to see that because we came out, we had the white hats that looked like ice cream vendors, almost lost 100 games, we're not very good, we wear purple, all those things, and all of a sudden, four years later, here we are in the World Series. It just happened so fast. I mean, that's the surprising thing and I think that's obviously been the story that's been played out; this whole thing is about how young this franchise is. No. 1 the reason why we're here is because of the people that are in charge and the people that put this thing together.