AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: YANKEES v MARINERS

October 17, 2001

Mike Mussina

MIKE MUSSINA: Well, I think the experience, playing in New York and with this ball team is almost everything I expected. Having watched them for ten years from the other side, the way they go about their job, the professionalism, the competitiveness, just the way they play the game, that's why they have been as successful as they have been, I believe, the last five years. I think it's a direct take-off of the manager. He doesn't get too emotional about ups or downs, and hence, the team doesn't. So if we get hot, we don't take it for granted. If we don't play well for a stretch, we don't dwell on it. For that reason, the last five or six years, we've always had a chance to play in October.

MIKE MUSSINA: Well, I think they have obviously a quality lineup. They scored a lot of runs, from the top all the way down, you can't pick out one aspect of the game and say, If I can stop Ichiro or if I can stop Edgar or if I can get Boone out, then I'm going to be able so slow them down enough that we can win the game. You have to be able to slow down all aspects of their offense, and if you get one. It doesn't mean that you are going to have a good game against them. You have to be on top of your game, and hopefully we'll be able to do that.

MIKE MUSSINA: Well when you get to these situations, I mean, I know who I have success against and who has had success against me. You try to draw from that experience and use it to your advantage the best you can. I know the guys on this club that have gotten some hits off me, and there were some guys that I can get out. So just go out there for that one game and try to use all your knowledge and all your experience and hope it works for you.

MIKE MUSSINA: Well, obviously I think the comeback in the last series was emotional for us. It was exciting. It got momentum on our side because we lost the first two games at home and there were a lot of people that didn't think that we could come back from it. They were starting to talk about our age and all of these things that come into play. We had a hard-fought 1-0 win in Oakland to get us going, and after that, we rolled with the momentum and won the last two. So, hopefully we can keep going with that.

MIKE MUSSINA: Well, I try to take it as I took the last game. It's just a ballgame that you have to go pitch. Every game, you go out there all year, being a pitcher when you only get to perform one out of every five days. Games are very, very important to you. It's your one chance maybe in a whole week to get out there and do something. So I basically assume I'm going to take it just like I've taken every other game this year and go out and try to pitch the best game I possibly can.

MIKE MUSSINA: Could you repeat the first question, please?

MIKE MUSSINA: (Laughter.) Well, I think if you go out there and try to put the weight of down 0-2 elimination game on the road, 55,000 at the Oakland coliseum on top of you, plus the fact that you have to try to get maybe the hottest offensive team, maybe the hottest team period, the second half of the year, get through them to win a game to keep from being beaten, then you're going to go out there and maybe not get out the first inning. That's the way I try to look at it. I try not to look at the ramifications of it, I just try to look at the game. If I had stood looking around the arena going, "Oh, Lord, if we don't score some runs, we are going to lose, we're going to go home. People are going to start talking about all this stuff about how we overachieved, we didn't belong there." We get one swing on one ball, one backhand to and all of a sudden we are still here. Sometimes in the playoffs that's all it takes. That's really all it takes. That's the way I thought about it.

MIKE MUSSINA: Are we still talking about that?

MIKE MUSSINA: Thank you. Thank you. (Smiles) so what did you want to know about?

MIKE MUSSINA: Well, I think having been in that situation twice now, yeah, I was upset about it. And it was tough to talk about right after the fact that day, the next day, maybe the next week. But it was fun to be involved in that. And honestly, when I was sitting in the dugout or in the clubhouse in the bottom of the -- the top of the ninth, I guess it was, I was thinking to myself, I'm going to get 27 guys out and we're going to score and I'm going to get an asterisk next to my name that didn't mean diddly down the road. But if I had given up a base hit in the first inning, everybody would have thought it was one of the best games, and people still think that, and I would have been emotional about it and I was excited about it. But because it happened with two outs and two strikes in the ninth, I was upset about it. But a month later, six weeks later, it really got me going through September and October, because I've pitched pretty well since then. Who knows, if I would have gotten 27 guys out in a row, who knows what it would have meant after that, but I didn't and so on. I'm pleased with the way I've thrown for the last six or eight weeks, just because I didn't quite get that doesn't take away from what I've done the last month of the season.

MIKE MUSSINA: I mean, that was -- when I turned around and saw the ball coming in over the top of everyone's head and Giambi was coming from third to score and it's 1-0, and it runs through your mind, oh, "We're going to get him. No, no, we're not going to get him." And all of a sudden we get him, bang, bang, play at the plate. It's just -- it was emotional. It was emotional for all of us. I think anybody watching the game, especially in New York, people in the whole coliseum were standing because they thought the tying run was going to score. And when he didn't, you could hear the groan of the crowd, the excitement of our dugout. I'm sure everybody watching in New York was jumping up and down as much as we were, because it was the biggest point in the game. That just -- you needed to be excited about it. You just needed to be. There's moments -- a lot of the games you need to control your emotions and there are moments where you need to release your emotions, and that was a moment we got to release some emotion, and it's really helped us the last two games after that.

MIKE MUSSINA: Well, I think speed is a factor that is hard to replace if you don't have it. I mean, guys are going to hit home runs from time to time, but a player that gets on, gets on base with his speed, steals bases, covers the outfield, goes from first to home on a ball that doesn't make it to the wall in the gap, there's really -- you can't substitute that. You can't. You have nine home run hitters in the lineup, but they are not going to hit home runs every day. And yet that person that goes out there and has speed, he has speed every day. There's more ways to make something happen with speed than somebody whose going to hit home runs. That home run is one swing one event. Somebody who has speed can do numerous things and cause numerous problems.

MIKE MUSSINA: Yes, I have pitched on three days quite a few times now. As far as an advantage, I don't necessarily think there's a physical advantage, it may be can be a mental advantage. It depends how you feel about it. It depends on how you feel about yourself physically throwing on one day less than you are used to. Most of the year we go throwing on four days rest and pitching on the fifth day and in some cases we get five days off. And depending on off-days and rain outs and such and you get to pitch on the sixth day and just occasionally, we go less time. I think if you can handle it mentally, that you don't really look at the fact that, I haven't had the same amount of rest time that I've had in the past and just go out there and try to pitch and just look at it as a game and it's my turn to pitch, whether it's three days, four days, five days, whatever, and then you can go out there and perform. At least that's what I've tried to do.

MIKE MUSSINA: Yes, sir.

MIKE MUSSINA: I think we spend a lot of time on air planes, as a lot of you do all year. You get accustomed of consider having to go perform when your body and your brain don't feel at their best. We've put in quite a few miles back and forth to Oakland and now back here. And if this series continues, then we are all going to come back to New York and we are all going to come back here and eventually one way or the other, we are going to go back to New York again when all that is over. We're going to put some miles out there on our bodies and some time changes. I had to pitch the day in Oakland when we came all the way from the coast, so you just have to go out there and find a way to be ready.

MIKE MUSSINA: I have no secrets. Sorry. There's millions of travelers in this country, and I do not have a secret on how to combat it. If somebody does, they are going to get a Nobel prize, I'll tell you.

MIKE MUSSINA: I think a big factor in making the decision was whether or not I thought the team had a chance to still be playing in October. And when you sit around and look at the clubs and what their possibilities were and who their core players or and what do you think their future is going to look like, I thought and I still feel that this team is in one of the best situations to be in. So with the players we have, Jeter and Bernie and Posada and Andy, Roger, Mariano, you just run through a whole list of players that have performed and will continue to perform for this club. It was the best chance I thought to still be playing in October, and that's why I'm sitting here now.