MLB WORLD SERIES: YANKEES v BRAVES

October 23, 1999

Bobby Cox

BOBBY COX: They're both great fielders. I think the ball was bunted in a great spot. Even if Hunter hadn't dropped the ball, he still would have made the play.

BOBBY COX: Rocker could have pitched -- no. Maddux was still throwing good. He threw good the inning they got all the runs. The only ball hit good was Jeter, that's it.

BOBBY COX: Maddux was still throwing good. Even when I took him out, he was still throwing good. He wasn't getting a lot of help, that's for sure.

BOBBY COX: Yes, it was.

BOBBY COX: Of who?

BOBBY COX: Good. He threw good, I thought.

BOBBY COX: I felt he and Maddux both threw great.

BOBBY COX: Yeah. He's had three innings. He could pitch an inning and a third tomorrow easily.

BOBBY COX: That one may -- I'm not sure. I think, I don't know. It was probably outside. But there were a lot of other ones that were extremely, extremely close, a bunch.

BOBBY COX: You get beat most of the time is what happens. You know, I made up my mind, I'm not going to talk about the umpires in this series. But, you know, close, close pitches will determine the game. One way or the other. We felt Chipper was safe at second, too. I don't know if he was or not, but he looked safe. It's 1-0 at the time, we get a base hit, that's 2-0. Huge difference.

BOBBY COX: Not really. I don't know what the other managers think about it, but I -- you know, it's the umpires. It's part of baseball. Missing calls, getting them right, making errors, hitting home runs, that's all part of the game. Bad hops. It's all part of the game.

BOBBY COX: He pitched great. Brosius got three ground balls through our infield tonight, then we messed up the bunt. You know, we thought we had Strawberry, and we ended up giving some runs that inning. He gave up one ball, good hit. I thought he was as good tonight as he's ever been. He had plenty of room to go nine innings tonight.

BOBBY COX: I don't know. Brian is an excellent first baseman. That's probably why -- he's real quick. That's probably why he got fouled up a little bit. We don't generally miss on that. The bunt was just kind of right in between. He threw it out of his hand. Still would have got one out.

BOBBY COX: Tomorrow, with Tommy?

BOBBY COX: I don't know. He's not pitching tomorrow.

BOBBY COX: I don't know.

BOBBY COX: He's going to pitch Tuesday if he can. But I haven't heard -- I haven't asked anybody tonight if they've had an update on him.

BOBBY COX: Well, I honestly think both pitchers were on top of their game tonight. There was a lot of wind there, and it was chilly and not a good night to hit probably, but yet I think both pitchers were really throwing the ball well. It was tough, you know, with those kind of pitches they were making, tough to hit at. That's the first real cold ball game I think we've played in, ourselves. I think when the Yankees played in Boston it was cold.

BOBBY COX: Like I said, he got three ground balls to our infield. They weren't really hit; they were ground ball base hits. They were hit just right.