MLB WORLD SERIES: YANKEES v DIAMONDBACKS

October 30, 2001

Joe Torre

JOE TORRE: Well, you know, this is more like us. Of course, with the conditions tonight, you never know. That wind was swirling and it was not an easy game to play. But, you know, I think when I see our guys, especially when Brosius makes an error, even though he's made a lot of errors this year, it still surprises me when he does it.

JOE TORRE: The only thing I can say, for a pitcher as great as Roger has been, he's really had to defend himself a lot. And after this game tonight, I don't think he will have to defend himself again. He was dynamite. Dynamite. He gave us more than we had hoped to and wanted to go out there very badly in the seventh inning. And even though, we had people warming up in case he went through the inning one, two, three and it was great.

JOE TORRE: He's such an animated person. He had trouble with a floating strike zone tonight. He was yelling at himself and just trying to make sure that he kept his focus. He threw a lot of strike ones and that was so important for him tonight, because I thought the only problem he would have had was early in the game as far as pitch count, and he was able to keep it down for us.

JOE TORRE: This is an electric city, there's no question. The President on board and Michael in Manhattan; it just -- you know, I think the only thing we really didn't appreciate was the fact we were down two games to none. But it was a must-game for us. With the president being here, it was pretty special. I mean, he's doing a hell of a job, and to come out here with everything that's going on, I thought it was a good sign for everybody.

JOE TORRE: Well, I think the fact, that even though it's tough, we have to go on with our lives. I think that's the most important thing. We cannot allow people to change our -- you know, the fact that we need to live our lives. It's not the same; we don't know if it will ever be the same and I think the President being here, you know, put his money where his mouth is. He wanted us right from the get-go to do what we need to do, to live as normal a life as we can. And with everything, as I said, that's been going on, he just showed a lot of courage and a lot of class.

JOE TORRE: I'm really not even thinking about the lineup tomorrow. You know, we are capable of hitting. We have not done it. We've had plenty of opportunities. They made some errors tonight and we could not take advantage of any of them and that concerned me because that's never usually a good sign. But how many times have we been down this road? This question has been asked, and I still believe in our club, even though we are not a ballclub that's going to score a lot of runs, but I sure as hell know we can score more than we've been scoring and I still have to anticipate that we are going to do that. But I don't know what my lineup is going to be though, at this time.

JOE TORRE: That's been the rumor this whole time. It doesn't surprise me if the scoreboard was right, Batista was up warming up earlier so I think it told us at that point in time that even in a tie game, that's what Bob was planning to do. We'll be here.

JOE TORRE: He's a kid that reminds me a great deal -- I mean he acts a great deal like Jeter when he was here as a rookie. The stage is enormous and he still plays baseball and seems to be able to make the plays. I mean, he showed me something in the post-season when he just took a routine ground ball to end the game and threw it to first base; that's not easy for a young kid to do. But he certainly, you know, kept the ball from going into right field, making a great play and that one at-bat, he really worked his tail off and even took a good approach when we had him hitting 3-0. He didn't try to swing from his rear end, just tried to get a base hit and just happened to hit it to the shortstop.

JOE TORRE: I think more so than trying to compete with a pitcher on the other side, I think he realized what we needed from him, and he gave us every bit of it. I mean, especially what he's been through physically in the last month, has to make him feel really good, and as I said earlier, should never have to defend himself as far as pitching a big game. But you don't want to be down 3-0, for sure, especially when they can throw some pitching at you.