October 9, 1999
DALLAS, TEXAS: Game Three
Q. What impact did Bernie Williams' defense have on this series?
JOHNNY OATES: Right from Game 1, the catch made New York turn the momentum, what it was
there, off of Game 1, it would have been a whole different series. That play set the tone,
I thought. Tonight he got good jumps on all the balls; made it look easy. I haven't seen
that too many times this year, especially when you're playing the other side of second. I
thought maybe either one of the balls he hit might have been able to go out.
Q. What did Strawberry's home run do to you guys emotionally?
JOHNNY OATES: Probably surprised us. Our guys were pretty upbeat, I felt, the entire
ballgame. Certainly giving up a three-run home run in the first inning, it's not the best
thing in the world to happen to you. But our pitchers kept battling. Este gave us a good
outing. Wetteland finished it up. It's been the same this whole series. Never got the
offense going.
Q. Johnny, what did you think of Roger?
JOHNNY OATES: He threw well enough to win. We scored no runs. But I've seen Roger pitch
when he was so intimidating with all of his stuff that I guess we all try to compare Roger
to when Roger was the best. And we had some chances to score some runs tonight, and I'm
not sure -- I know he's not 100 percent, watching him move around on the mound. You take
that into consideration. The bottom line was he still put zeroes on the board.
Q. McLemore hit a double play in the 8th. That was a tough one. Also, four or five
balls hit right up the middle. Seems like you guys were snakebitten all night.
JOHNNY OATES: I thought we did a pretty good job swinging the bats tonight. I think
early in the ballgame, we hit -- we hit quite a few balls hard. That's part of the game.
You'd like a few of them to go through. A couple of the line drives go through, maybe next
time we win.
Q. Johnny, do you look for reasons for this? Do you think it's just you're a tired team
or tired players, does that have anything to do with it?
JOHNNY OATES: May I ask, tired from what? Just --.
Q. From having to go from the home field, you were in the race with New York and
Cleveland, to go last Saturday.
JOHNNY OATES: Like the players are telling me, they were upset they had so many off
days. They said they lost the continuity, having three off days. The last week in
September, then only playing every other day for the playoffs; our guys have had right now
six or seven off days in the last two weeks. That's what they're complaining about; that
they didn't get to play enough. So I don't think the answer to your question is being
tired.
Q. Johnny, despite the wins and everything you accomplished during the regular season,
does the same outcome, same number of runs, same struggles in the playoffs, does that
essentially make this a step backwards?
JOHNNY OATES: I don't see it. Not in my eyes. I don't see it as a step backwards. I
know that our goal is we want to move forward and win a World Championship, and I'm
confident that it will happen here soon. And we'll let -- I'll just sit back and try to --
I have a few months to analyze what went on this playoff and see how we can score, it
seems like, most of the year and yet, come to these three games, seems like we can't smell
home plate.
Q. Do you care to make any comparisons of the Yankees this year and last year?
JOHNNY OATES: Last time I tried to compare the Yankees to somebody else, I got in a lot
of trouble in New York. You can't compare teams last year to another team. Last year's
Yankee team was arguably, for those people in here old enough to have seen the 1904 Cubs,
or whoever they were playing, I don't know if they're better than them. Last year's
Yankees won 114 ball games, went through us, could have easily gone through Cleveland the
same way, and did the National League Champion. Last year was a special year. In my mind,
there's no comparison.
Q. Johnny, after what happened last year, can you even fathom it would happen again?
Going into the series, would you bet it would happen again?
JOHNNY OATES: Not with the success we had during the summer. With Rafael in the middle,
we had a lot of -- we were going to score some runs this year.
Q. Were you satisfied with the team's mental approach in this series?
JOHNNY OATES: I think sometimes we got confused. We had a bunch of people tell them be
more patient, be more patient, and we tried that the first game. We walked seven times; we
got two hits. We did something right for the first 162 games. Now why do we have to change
it the next three? We don't have to change a thing. But everybody started talking, said
take more pitches, take more pitches. The press started writing it, and, hey, you've got
to work the count more. Well, Clemens threw more pitches than Loaiza did tonight.
Q. When you analyze the three-game series, was it more your team's inability to hit or
the Yankees pitching so well?
JOHNNY OATES: I don't know the answer to that. I'm going to let you analyze it tomorrow
morning, and I'm going to take the next four months off.
Q. Where does this team go from here?
JOHNNY OATES: Home.
Q. Where do you go after that?
JOHNNY OATES: Spring training. Do it again. Do it again. Try to tee it up again. In
golf, you get Mulligan. Hopefully, most of us will be back next year and we'll get another
Mully gain.
End of FastScripts
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