MLB WORLD SERIES: YANKEES v DIAMONDBACKS

October 31, 2001

Miguel Batista

MIGUEL BATISTA: Affecting me, no. I've been through this for the last seven months, and last night, a lot of people were asking me about my feelings about how he changes his mind about the way he's pitching me. I told him, "I'm not here to judge the man's command." I'm here to follow orders. We have made a lot of changes through the season and I've been in 95 percent of them, so I'm used to it.

MIGUEL BATISTA: How much? It's a lot. What is it, I can't tell you. That's a team secret, but I do -- I have learned a lot from them. They are the best power pitchers in our league, and they have taught me a lot of things, especially the first time that Schilling approached me and he told me, "You know, you have a lot of tools, you have to learn how to do the best with that fastball that you have and learn some things that will help you to get some funny swings in certain situations." I have to take a lot of time to pay attention, especially when Schilling is throwing because he is a right-hander, as I am, and then apply that to my throwing in the bullpen, and I have tried it in the game a few times and it has worked.

MIGUEL BATISTA: Well, I don't worry about Mussina. I don't have to face him. My hitters do. I'm worried about my pitching and my approach, you know, keeping my concentration in the game. He's a hell of a man to watch. He has been a great pitcher for years, but worrying about him pitching on the other side, no. I don't.

MIGUEL BATISTA: Having the winning team behind us. That helps a lot. We were in the first three in percentage of fielding. We have a great offensive team. And when you play for a team that had end up last every year, especially fielding and hitting, it helps when you get those numbers, especially when you are a pitcher.

MIGUEL BATISTA: Like that, no. I'm the type of person that usually I think about the season when I go home. Right now, I have to be ready for whatever movement we are going to make on the day or in the game. Probably when I go home I'm going to start thinking about it. I might get a little excited when people ask how come I'm not that excited. I tell them, if I have to pitch every day and I get that excited, I might blow out.

MIGUEL BATISTA: We have been in so much intense situations that I have not been inspired. There are always things for you to notice, but to sit down and write something about it, not yet.

MIGUEL BATISTA: I don't know, so far, I just try to take every day as it comes. I have a lot to watch tonight, that Schilling is going and El Duque is going for the other side. But for me, thinking about taking the mound and all of that history behind it, I don't get all choked up about those things. I've got a job to do and that's what they pay me for. Like I told before, I don't care if it's the angels of Jesus, I have to try to pitch against them and beat them.

MIGUEL BATISTA: Einstein, that's just a quote I bought in a store in San Diego that I really related to when he talks about imagination and how important it is for a man to know that math and addition is better than talent and knowledge. You know what you know, you do what you can, but you can imagine a whole different world, and what's what it means to me.

MIGUEL BATISTA: The book I wrote is something that I was working on for years and I never had the -- not the courage, but I would say the push from my friend to put it together and I published it this year on the 29th of January. But this new book I'm working on is a different thing, it's a novel. There's a lot of things into it. I had to interview a bunch of people and I still have to interview some more because I'm trying to get this idea out of my mind about the weirdest, I would say, serial killer. Why, because the kid is under age and it's the first time in history that a serial killer is under age. Usually they are a very mature man and very intellectual, there's something more, something spectacular about this kid, he has an extra power that nobody understands what it is, not even himself.

MIGUEL BATISTA: Well, I'm just like the guy from the series, Dream On; I watch a lot of movies and that gives me a lot of ideas. I always have liked the law and I am planning to go to law school, I don't know if before I finish baseball or after, but I do. When you are a lawyer and you can't perform in your career, you usually have a lot of time to think about things that you would like to face. So far with all of the interviews that I have with all of these people, lawyers, police officers, I feel like I am pregnant with all of these ideas and I am just trying to give birth to all of them. That's how I'm getting inspired for all of these things.

MIGUEL BATISTA: I'm not a religious man. I believe that my only religion is love. I believe that the Lord says, love one another. The religions that I apply to this book is that I believe we all have a religion, even some people believe in themselves, but I believe that we all have a religion and spirituality is a big part of every man. I applied a lot into this book I'm writing because we all believe in something and when we face the extraordinary, something that logically, doesn't have a reason to exist, but we know that it's going on because we can see it with our own eyes, that's what I'm trying to apply.