AL DIVISION SERIES: RED SOX v INDIANS

October 7, 1999

Mike Hargrove

A. No. It's one of those things that it is probably best left unexplained. Just be thankful that it happens.

A. Well, you know, you don't win any sort of race without having all your components, I mean, and whatever team is out there usually is noted for one or two strong points, and even if all their components are solid and strong, there's a tendency for some to be overlooked. We scored over 1,000 runs this year in the regular season and, you know, everything has a tendency to be overlooked, you know, beyond that. So we feel like we've got good, solid starting pitching and we've got a good, solid bullpen, and really that's the way it's gone for most of the year.

Q. Is this the best of the five division champions you had?

A. I think that it is the most diverse as far as the quality of our game. I think we catch the ball well, we run the bases well, we've got three base stealers in our lineup and we've got people that hit the ball out of the ballpark. So I think that it's as evenly divided as any club that we've had, offensively and defensively.

A. Taken as a whole, yes.

A. Well, obviously we ended up scoring that inning so it ended up being pretty big. Any time, Jimy will tell you the same thing, any time you give to a major league team, you are really skating on thin ice, and that's what happened today.

A. Yes, he is. But Jim is not one of these rah-rah, kick you in the butt type leaders. Jimmy leads by example and he pays attention to what he is doing and he makes sure he conducts himself the way he would like to be seen as, you know, very professional about what he does. And, you know, that's Jimmy. I mean, he lets people see what he does and then he expects people to follow that. But he's not, he's not the kind of leader that will stand up and give a speech. He shows up every day to play.

A. Charlie threw strikes and stayed out in the middle of the plate. I think probably -- he obviously didn't throw many bad pitches at all today. The one pitch he probably would like to have over, I would like to have over for him, was the RBI base hit he gave up to Offerman. He tried to stay off the plate and the ball came back in the middle of the plate and Jose hit that ball the way good hitters did. But Charlie was down with everything. He threw strikes, once he got the lead, you know, he made them put the ball in play. I mean, that's a good hitting ball club, Boston. They swing the bats. They know how to play the game, and to be able to do what Charlie was able to do today I think speaks a lot for his stuff today.

A. No. But if I did, we could all make a whole lot of money selling it to people. I think that the post-season is a completely different set of circumstances. It's a whole brand new season and really what goes on during the season, you know, you really can wipe it up and throw it out the window because it is all starting over. I think that is probably it. Boston has a good ball club. They played well the last two nights.

Q. Any chance of overconfidence with getting past the best pitcher in the league the first game and the second game having him out?

A. I don't think there is any danger of being overconfident. We have a tremendous amount of respect for the Red Sox and when you have that type of respect for them and their abilities, you never take anything for granted or are overconfident about anything. We know that we still have a fight on our hands. We haven't finished the job by any stretch of the imagination. We have to go to Boston and win.

A. We were able to add a professional hitter, a guy along the lines of Paul Molitor, people like that, that are absolutely pure good hitters and Harold brings that to the party. He also brings a professionalism. Harold is fairly unflappable. You never really can tell how Harold is going by the way he acts. He's always positive and upbeat and it is good for our young people to see, see a man who has been in the game and has had the success that he's had acting that way. And it settles everybody down around him in our lineup. It helps to have a guy in your lineup that is a professional hitter.

A. Yes. That and the fact that he is competent. I think that probably as much as anything Sandy has to overcome, that fear that when he throws, his knee is going to buckle on him or hurt him and Sandy has overcome that and threw the ball very well. The last two or three times people tried to run on Sandy, he has thrown the ball well.