AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS v YANKEES

October 9, 1999

Roger Staubach

ROGER STAUBACH: My arm is okay. I didn't think my hair would go before my arm, but my arm is in good shape. My hair is thinning out. I just hope I can throw that one pitch, doesn't bounce in the dirt.

ROGER STAUBACH: Well, I went through with our son. Jeff, who played baseball at Duke, and actually played one year with the Yankees at Greensboro. He and I were out throwing yesterday. I workout, play basketball and things.

ROGER STAUBACH: I played baseball in college. I love baseball. Started out as a kid, played at a gathering. I played centerfield and I did come in and relief pitch now and then. My dream is: I throw the ball so hard Johnny Oates comes out and says, "How about throwing the first inning?" I don't know if dreams come true, but I have been thinking about that.

ROGER STAUBACH: Well, I really -- I do really like baseball a lot; so watching Clemens is -- he's a power pitcher, and pitching is really -- like Nolan Ryan, he really gets his body. When you see that momentum of his, he delivers the fastball, he has kind of an artist the way that he does it. He keeps throwing the speed, the velocity like Nolan kid. People don't realize how obviously -- unless you're into baseball, as we are here, how tough that is.

But it's controlling their body, getting their body behind the pitch. Clemens is fantastic at doing that. Tonight I'm sure he'll be throwing in the 90's. He's 36.

ROGER STAUBACH: Yes, I do. There will be a Game 4. You heard it here.

ROGER STAUBACH: No, but I do talk to Troy Aikman. Troy and I have talked a lot. I haven't had any Rangers call me for anything.

ROGER STAUBACH: I really -- the Rangers -- if you watched this year, they had some periods of time when you felt, hey, this team isn't the team that you thought it was. But they were resilient. Even watching these first games, you feel there's something missing, but they really have come back, and I really think they're a team that can get it together. They have the talent, and they've done it this year, at times when they were in that funk. I think they're a resilient team. I think their pride is going to take over tonight, after getting hammered the way they have been the last two games. Probably their wives are mad at them and the press. I think they're a really good team, and I think they're resilient. I think they have perserverence inside of them. I think they're going to play their guts out tonight and win.

ROGER STAUBACH: I think getting over the hump. I was in the service watching Dallas play Green Bay and I joined the team; we couldn't get by Cleveland. So there's something that you have to do to get over to that next step. And I think playoffs that the Rangers had before against the Yankees -- ^ I thought this would be the playoffs. I haven't given up. I felt it's time for them to take the next step. Obviously, the odds are a lot more difficult now. In football, when we had trouble like that and once you get there and you get that confidence that you've done it and you feel that you can do it again, that's something that has to take over, and I think that's important. Obviously, the Rangers if they win tonight, they're going to have a different feeling about the next game. The Yankees, they just haven't been able to get over that hurdle. And we had that same problem back in the old days against Green Bay and Cleveland. Hopefully, it won't happen continuously with the Rangers.

ROGER STAUBACH: No. No.

ROGER STAUBACH: I think that they have -- i think they're pretty focused tonight. They don't need something from an old quarterback.

ROGER STAUBACH: That's a good question. I was called -- they were going to have a theme of Texans. I know they have others lined up, and I sure hope they get their chance.

ROGER STAUBACH: Well, they asked me a new weeks ago to do it, and it's a thrill for me to do it. I'm a big Ranger fan. I honestly don't know how it came about, other than I know they have people lined up that have been in sports in Texas, and I just haven't -- I happened to get the first game. I want to make sure it's not the last one.

ROGER STAUBACH: I would like to have him out there. I'm kind of nervous, getting ready to throw this pitch. I threw a football through a Nokia phone. Last year -- I actually had two throws and the guy -- he selected me, gets $100,000. If he does it himself, he gets a million. So we were throwing the day before. I was throwing through the phone. I was going to be in closer; so the odds increased, that I could throw better than he. He selected me. I had two throws. That was the contract with Nokia. I threw it hard; barely missed it. I was nervous now, 100,000 bucks. He's over there with his wife. The reason he might have thrown the ball -- he didn't tell me until that moment, we were standing there in the middle of the field, at the Texas/Ohio State game, and his mother, who is like 86, had a vision of him throwing it through the -- his wife didn't have that same vision. So there was this battle between his mother and his wife; so his wife won, and so he selected me, and so I missed the first one. They're over there putting their head down. He gets 10,000 bucks if I missed the second one. I did make the second one. I was walking off the field, said: "Can you believe that, we won a Super Bowl on this field, here I am trying to throw a football through a hole in a phone, we have come a long way, haven't we?" But he got the hundred thousand bucks. He e-mails me about every two weeks. I hear from him. His daughter just had a baby the other day. So we're buddies. Wayne Stevenson, he's retired from Wachovia Bank in Atlanta. But that was -- I was a little more nervous before throwing a baseball to a catcher. There's no money on it.

End of FastScripts….