MLB WORLD SERIES: METS v YANKEES

October 20, 2000

Don Zimmer

DON ZIMMER: Well, going back to 1955 and 1956, it was something very special. And I was hoping this happened last year, I guess, be it a little selfish. I was hoping mainly so we wouldn't have to travel. This year, it's happened, and I would say '56, '55 were tremendous, tremendous times. But I don't think it will be anything like this weekend and next week.

DON ZIMMER: Well, I was injured. I was in uniform; I was on the bench. And I think that was the first year, maybe the first year and a half, that Larsen went with the new line-up. That's the thing that I remembered more than anything, the new line-up. Naturally, to stand there and watch him, I know I think everybody was aware after the fifth inning that the guy had a perfect game. And just to see a perfect game, I mean, we didn't like it, but now that you remember, it was something that you'll never forget. I can remember the pitch, not taking anything away from Don Larsen, but I can remember the questionable strike three. It looked like a little high outside, I'm not sure. But I can remember that like it was yesterday. It's just something that you can't put in words, and I was lucky enough to be there.

DON ZIMMER: Well, No. 1, we lost a coach last year, Jose Cardenal, and Lee Mazzilli had come in as a coach. And he come in to Tampa, Florida, with his chest out, knowing he's going to get a check for $200,000 or $300,000, "The Yankees are going to win; no way you can get beat," this and that. I looked at him and said, "Boy, you got to be crazy. This is not the same team." I didn't say it wasn't as good a team, I said it was not the same team. I said, "We got our work cut out." I felt that day from day one. When you win a World Series and go into Spring Training the next spring with no Strawberry, no Chili Davis, no Chad Curtis, no Sojo, no Joe Girardi and no fifth starter -- now you got to remember our fifth starter already failed through Spring Training, which meant that Mendoza had to be our fifth starter, something that we always kind of hid because we always wanted him in the bullpen. That's why I thought it would be a tough year. And many times during the season Mazzilli had said to me, "I can remember what you told me. Thank goodness Cashman went out and got Justice." We were pretty poor at the time Justice joined our club. He gave us a shot in the arm that we really needed. Then the rest of it, Sojo is just, again, been unbelievable. Vizcaino. It's a team that in the past three out of four years, you sat back, everything kind of come easy. You almost knew you were going to win. Well, I didn't know we were going to win until Edgar Martinez hit that ground ball to Jeter the night before. That's how tough the year has been.

DON ZIMMER: Well, No. 1, I was playing with the Cubs, and there was the expansion draft, and there was seven men had to be put on before the World Series for $75,000 in the draft. Then you had to put on two bonus choices after the World Series. I was not on either one, except that I was on a radio show Sunday, the last day of the season, and said playing under eight or nine or ten coaches in one year, I think I had enough of it. So they took Barney Schultz, I think, off of the bonus choice and put me on it. I wound up a Met. I went to Spring Training in St. Petersburg, Florida, which is my home and George Weiss had to be a brilliant man to name Casey Stengel to manage this team. We had media that spring, and Miller Huggins Field, you would have swore that we had won three straight World Championships. The media from all over the world came into Miller Huggins Field to watch the team of ours, and that's the team that lost 120 games. People say to me, "How does it feel to be on a team that lost 120 games?" And my answer is, "Don't blame them all on me, because I got traded the first 30 days. So blame maybe 25 or 30 of them on me but not all of them." But I think it's great that it's turned out this way. To me, that's what I was hoping for. And here we are, ready to tee it up tomorrow.

DON ZIMMER: Well, No. 1, I just watched the outfielder, Perez, play the last few days. He's an exciting player, a very cocky little confidence player, and he's done a tremendous job. He has given them a lift, there's no question about it, in different ways that Justice gave us a lift. It's going to be a guy that we're going to have to try to keep off of base, no question about it. Second...?

DON ZIMMER: There's no question the two left-landers that are going to pitch against us Saturday and Sunday are good pitchers. But we got pretty good pitchers pitching tomorrow ourselves Saturday and Sunday. David Justice, if you look back at some record, I mean, I'm not a big stat man, but I got a pretty good memory. I can remember since the day David Justice has joined us, I'll promise you that he has hit no less than six home runs, two- and three-run homers off of curveballs off of left-handed pitchers, just like he did a few days ago. When Paul O'Neill is on the ball, Tino's on the ball, they can hit left-handers. That's why they play every day.

DON ZIMMER: Well, every time we played them in the -- it was pennant then, it wasn't playoffs. If you won the pennant, you went to the World Series. It seemed like every year the Dodgers and Yankees were hooking up in the World Series. I thought the Dodgers had just as good a club as the Yankees. Yankee fans would disagree with that. The Brooklyn fans couldn't argue too much because they couldn't beat the Yankees, and it was just two great teams. Believe me, when I say two great teams playing each other, the Brooklyn Dodgers always wound up a little bit on the short end until 1955, and the Padres didn't give them any chance because they shut them out to win the seventh game.

DON ZIMMER: Well, this is my fifth year here with him, and he's been the manager of the year, the mayor of the world. He's been everything. I said in the last five days when people have come to me and talked about the series and so forth and so on, I know people probably looked up at me as if I was goofy because I said before we ever got to the World Series in the past week and a half, that this has been Joe Torre's best year of managing. That's my way of thinking, for many, many reasons -- some of them we've already talked about. A lot of people would not agree with that, but, again, you have to remember, we had awful easy-going for three or four years almost in a row. This has been a very, very tough year for us to get where we're at and for Joe Torre to keep this club together and get them where they're at today. I think this is his best managing job ever.

DON ZIMMER: Well, first of all, in the last five years people have come to me and said, "What makes Joe Torre such a good manager?" I said, "Good players." I think Joe will tell you the same thing. We've had good players here, there's no question about it. And we have won with good players. This year, I don't have a list in front of me, but I couldn't tell you how many games we've played this year -- I don't think it would be over 50 games -- that we have had our right nine guys on the field at the same time. I doubt if we had it 50 times. I don't know how many guys we've had on the DL this year. Just so many things have happened to this club. And I don't think anybody in New York that's Yankees fans realize what a pitcher Mendoza was for our club. There was times where he'd have a bad day and want to run him out of town, send him to Columbus. There was times that Mel Stottlemyre and Joe and I had to fight to keep him here. This guy was so important on our ballclub. I can remember one stretch where our four or five starters could have won about eight or nine games in a row going into the seventh inning to where that's where Mendoza would come in, and we let him slip away. We didn't have Mendoza. For Joe to keep this club going, fill in here, fill in there, do this, little pieces here and there, that's why I think that this year has been -- I know how I feel. This is the greatest thrill in the five years that I've been here of going to the World Series tomorrow. It's because of the kind of season that we've had.

DON ZIMMER: Well, first of all, in Brooklyn, I wanted to sign out of high school with the Cincinnati Reds, and -- but as it turned out, I signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, went to the Minor Leagues a few years, then finally made it to Brooklyn. That was a tremendous thrill for me. You look up at a ballclub that I played on, I mean, like I said before, .235 hitter playing on the same team with Billy Cox, Pee Wee Reese, Bill Hodges, Campanella, Furillo, all the pitchers, that was a great club. To think that I was part of that club, sometimes a very little part, but I was there. And Brooklyn was a very special place. Hilda Chester, throwing her blanket over the fence down by third base. Happy Felton with his "knot-hole" gang. These were all special memories in my life. When we left there, maybe I wasn't hurt by it as much as some of the guys who had been there for 10, 15 years, but it was quite a blow to everybody, and especially to the Brooklyn fans.

DON ZIMMER: What was the year they won?

DON ZIMMER: I probably was playing golf somewhere.

DON ZIMMER: Let's see, 1969... I was in the Minor Leagues managing somewhere. I don't think that I was worried too much about the Mets at that time. That's the best way I can put it. I don't even remember where I was at 1969. I've been some so many damn teams, I don't know where I'm at half the time.

DON ZIMMER: Well, first of all, the best way I can put it: We're here. I know there's a lot of people wrote this team off in the past six weeks, and the way we played the last six weeks, I can understand that. But for this team to bounce back again, and be where we're at, I just -- I can't put it in words what this means. Naturally, going to the first game, Pettitte against Leiter, it's the same old story. If we happen to win, or the Yankees are going to win another World Series. If the Mets win, Yankees are dead. But that's the way the game goes. I know their outfielder, the right-handed hitter, I read in the headlines just a few minutes ago, "They'll win in five." Maybe they will. Maybe he's just smarter than the rest of us. Damn if I can tell you who's going to win or how many games it's going to take. I'm not that smart.

DON ZIMMER: Oh, I think at that time the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants was the real rivalry. Durocher, Dressen, fighting this and that, Furillo fighting with Durocher. It was something very special, that rivalry. I think a lot more than the Yankees and the Mets right now. I just think the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers was something very special, more so than when we would play the Yankees.