MLB WORLD SERIES: INDIANS v MARLINS

October 17, 1997

Matt Williams

DAVID JUSTICE: Well, it will feel like Spring Training, really, because I played right field my whole career. So I'm going to get out there today and just take the flat balls and take some balls off the wall and just do as much work as I can today. And after that everything is going all for my own disability.

DAVID JUSTICE: My shoulder is fine, I can throw.

DAVID JUSTICE: I'm not pitching, so I have no benefit, even though I know what Bobby Bonilla likes to do or Sheffield likes to do. Really there's no benefit, because I've never seen Livan or Hershiser. I don't care how many times you're going to see Kevin Brown he's going to be tough every time. There's not much of a benefit for myself, personally.

MATT WILLIAMS: The fact that we've seen the guys before, some of them, anyway, that's great. But as a pitcher, if you're going to make your pitches and put it where you want to, you're going to have a good chance of getting your hitter out, anyway, so it doesn't matter.

MATT WILLIAMS: I think Omar is the best shortstop I've ever seen. If you get a chance to see him on an every-day basis you appreciate his ability. Tony Fernandez even though he didn't play every day this year, he's got four under his belt, too. So it's a pretty good infield. I think in the last two series we've played good defense on the infield and that's certainly helped us win, so we want to continue to do that.

MATT WILLIAMS: Well, I think there's certainly an adjustment period when you have new guys come to the ball club. I think there were a lot of expectations for this club going into the season. I don't think it started out that way, though. We struggled a little bit, up and down, playing .500 ball for a long time. And it finally came together. I think it's great to have cohesiveness and all that stuff, but when it's you against them, when they're trying to get you out. It helps to have teammates like David and Marquis and the other new guys that are here, to make the atmosphere in the clubhouse cohesive.

DAVID JUSTICE: I don't know at what point in which I felt like we were all of a sudden really close. I could see that early on in April the team definitely wasn't as close as it is now. Not in a bad way, because we've got a bunch of good guys, but the guys really didn't know each other. But I think throughout the course of the year, having an opportunity to really get to know each other, both on the field and off the field, I think -- I don't know when, but all of a sudden our team now is definitely a cohesive bunch. But I can't really say when that really happened. I know this year we had times when we played great baseball and we had times when we didn't play that well. I don't know if it was because our team wasn't that close, I just think we weren't playing good sometimes. But now I think our team is really close and we're playing good baseball right now. I think when you start winning and you've got a great bunch of guys -- we have a great bunch of guys in the ball club. I think it's easy for us to be cohesive and that's what we have now.

DAVID JUSTICE: No, not really, because the Indians were good before we got here, and this is my first time ever being traded. Basically, I thought I was going to come over here and be quiet and try to fit in because I didn't know what type of personality the team had, I didn't know anything. And I definitely didn't want to come over and walk in and be the one who set the standard on how well we were going to be this year, because I didn't feel that was my place, they had Sandy Alomar and Tony and Omar, and all the guys that had been here. I think I'm a natural type of rah-rah type of guy. I think I'm a positive person. Eventually I think my personality, I just started opening up more, because I only know one way of playing, and that's getting behind my teammates when they're down, I want to be the one to help them get back up. And that's the only way I know how to play. And I don't think in April I was really doing that. But I think as the season progressed I think I started doing more of that. But I didn't feel any pressure like I had to do it. No one made me feel that way.

DAVID JUSTICE: This time of the year you expect for it to be tough, because every time in the playoffs, you're going to have some tough pitching. As you all know, good pitching always beats good hitting. I can't think back to a time when a team has won a World Series or has hit just so great. I've yet to see a team hit .400 in playoffs. Maybe it's been done before, but I've never seen it. Teams always have low batting averages, games are always low scoring, because you have dominated pitching in the playoffs. But it's always the little things that helps you win, whether it's the sacrifice fly or an important walk, or someone laying down a bunt to put a man in scoring position, that's usually the team that wins. But now we're in the World Series, so our team, everybody is batting zero. It's not about batting averages in the playoffs, it's about manufacturing those runs, and whether you hit .100 and win, that's the most important thing. I'd rather our team hit a hundred and win then --

MATT WILLIAMS: It's a prime example in the Oriole series, we pitched well and played good defense, we took advantage of the mistakes they made and we ended up winning, and that's what it's all about in the playoffs. You want to pitch well, and play good defense and take advantage of any mistake that's presented to you. If we can do that we'll have a good chance of winning.

DAVID JUSTICE: I don't think any appearance beats your first time. This is my 5th World Series appearance, my first one was the one that was amazing, because we came from last place the year before to first place. But just for me personally it's so rewarding because I had a season ending injury, that I didn't know if I was going to be able to play again. But to come back and play this year and have a solid season and then to help our team be where we are right now, I mean it's been everything I prayed for has been answered. And now the ultimate is to win the World Series. But this team is similar to the Braves team. We had a great bunch of guys that played hard over there. We have the same thing over here. This team has all star players in the clubhouse, but the atmosphere is not one of anybody walking around feeling better than anybody else. Everybody walks around the same, and I think really enjoy being around each other. That's the same thing we had in Atlanta. So I think this appearance is probably second out of all my five, outside of the first one, this would be second. And the third will be the one -- well, I can't say if -- it would probably be second on the list because of it's so exciting in Cleveland. Our fans are so incredible that I think that's why this one falls second. Because I just know how much it would mean to our city and those fans if we were to take it all the way.

DAVID JUSTICE: I don't know how our fans can root any harder for us. They're there every day, they're there for us. But I think it's really neat for the Cleveland Indians and Florida Marlins to be playing the World Series. I think everybody is tired of seeing the Braves (laughter.) I just think around the country I think a lot more people are really excited because it's just different. It's the Indians against the Marlins, who would have ever thought that? Not only that, we were eating today down at South Beach and just to see the people here in Florida so excited about the Marlins. I really like that kind of stuff, because so many peoples lives are being affected right now just the fact that the Marlins are in the World Series. And I like to see that. I just think it's great. I think this series already is great and we haven't even started yet. I think it's going to get better.

MATT WILLIAMS: Well, the fact that I stand out there at third base every night and play nine innings or ten innings or eleven innings and go home with a splitting headache is attributed to our fans (laughter.) Because it is so loud everyone on our team goes home with a headache, but we like that, it's nice to go home with that. They've been tremendous, they're raucous, yet they're knowledgeable, they're there ever day to spout our team and give us all they can. We certainly want to go out there and give them all we can.

MATT WILLIAMS: I think as a right-handed hitter here you certainly have to -- I liken it a little bit to Fenway, where you just have to put the left field -- the big wall in left field out of your mind, because it's easy to try to hit that ball to left field where you're not supposed to be doing that. It's a fair ballpark. It's big in center field and it certainly isn't easy to get the ball out of right field, either. It's a fair ballpark for pitchers. And we want to make sure we keep them in the ballpark and we'll be okay.

DAVID JUSTICE: I think it's a nice ballpark. Like Matt said it's a fair ballpark. There won't be any cheap homeruns if there are any hit, except probably to left field, anywhere else you've pretty much got to hit it. I've never seen this stadium really packed. It will be interesting to see how loud it can get or the difference from that standpoint. But you can see the ball pretty good, I think it's a nice stadium to play in.

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