AL DIVISION SERIES: ATHLETICS v YANKEES

October 15, 2001

Joe Torre

JOE TORRE: Well, if there's only 18 innings left in the whole year, you have to think positive. If we don't think positive, we are not playing Game 4, so we try to keep that positive thought in mind. The only thing I was telling my club on the off-day in Oakland was the fact that one game turns the whole momentum around, because I know how I felt when I was up three games to one or two games to zero or three games to zero. There's a lot of pressure because you have momentum on your side and you don't want to lose it. That's what I preached to them, think small. They thought small and played big. I can't tell you, maybe the World Series victories, especially my first one, it was no question, special. But to come back like this against that ballclub, I mean, they are so good. It was very special.

JOE TORRE: Atlanta was the first time and that was the World Series. That was the main stage. But this one, probably for a non-World Series, this is right to the top. I mean, the fact that nobody has ever done this doesn't mean that it can't be done, and the only way you can do it is have a guy like Mussina take the ball in Game 3 and do what he did. We obviously didn't give him any breathing room, and he was a big-game pitcher for us.

JOE TORRE: Well, they were pumped up. Thursday -- I know they are very loyal, but I'm sure there are a few people saying, "maybe they are not coming back." To come back, I knew it was going to be louder than anything you've ever heard, and it certainly was. The only downside was, you know, you are losing 1-0, 2-0 and the one thing you want to do as an opposing team is get the crowd out of it. Soriano and the kid, I've been asked several times about how he handles the pressure. He just thinks it's just a regular baseball game. But the crowd was huge for us. I have not heard it louder, especially in the last couple of innings when Mo came in and Jeter made the play down the left field line.

JOE TORRE: I think we just got outplayed. Any time you lose your starter like we did Roger the first game that deflates your balloon a little bit and I think that was a part of it. Not many clubs look good not winning and I thought we were ready to play. Sometimes we get tight and tonight both clubs were tight, I thought. Guys were screaming and yelling in that dugout and I wasn't about to try to temper their enthusiasm because I knew it was going to cause some mistakes and maybe swinging at bad balls but I would certainly rather have them attack it from the side they were on than to try to be cool and confident and experienced and all that crap. You know, the most important thing is getting it done, and just -- the pitching staff did it again. Roger was courageous. He was unbelievable. You know he was just going to pitch the five innings. We knew that after four, and then when we got to Giambi, I could not ask Andy to come in there in a situation like that, so we just sort of accelerated one inning and brought in Mike.

JOE TORRE: Well, you know, Derek, from 1996 when I first met the young man, has that look in his eye. It's a look that you don't teach. It's a look that you have, that fire in your belly, and that love for the competition. This kid with that play he made the other night, thinks cool in very hot situations. And making that play, he never has any regard for putting his body in peril or being embarrassed with a bad swing. He's a true -- we have a number of them, but he's a true leader at a very early age for me.

JOE TORRE: Yes. In fact, I was asked earlier today, "Do you think of what went on here with the rescue workers and the terrible tragedy"? And we certainly talked about it before our first game. I can't say it motivates us more, because we are very highly-motivated to begin with, but we did have a piece in our heart of what went on and the people we take for granted. But after winning and actually being in a position to win after yesterday's game, there's no question we knew there was a great deal of responsibility on our shoulders, and I think that's why we were a little tight going in today, even though they were pumped up.

JOE TORRE: No. And again, you have to understand, Mariano has a fastball. He makes it do a number of things, and it looked like he was throwing it 200 miles an hour in the ninth inning today. He just wasn't going to be denied. Again, to keep the edge he's got -- and I thought about it, believe me. I thought about it when we brought him in, in the eighth inning -- when he started maturing for me was in 1997. We brought him in in the eighth inning of Game 4 and he gave up the home run to Sandy Alomar and he did nothing but grow from that time on. But I don't think I could ever remember a guy as efficient as Mariano. Just efficient and just with a big heart.

JOE TORRE: Yeah, Yogi, yes. He corners the market on these things. He cornered the market on the saying. Yogi is a good-luck charm. He's not the only one I have. Earlier today, my five-year-old daughter, Andrea her No, mom said to her, "Dad has a very important game tonight, so I've got to get a baby-sitter for you and then I have to go to the ballgame." We just got home at like six o'clock this morning. She said, "It's a very important game and I have to go because I'm his good luck charm." And it worked, again, Andrea. It worked again. But Yogi here all day today and he says, "I got four calls today about that hat, people looking to buy them." I didn't ask him for anything from them, but he is a good luck charm for sure, too.