MLB WORLD SERIES: INDIANS v MARLINS

October 22, 1997

Matt Williams

MATT WILLIAMS: What kind of year has it been? It's been probably the toughest year I've ever been through.

MATT WILLIAMS: Not getting too deep into it, inconsistent professionally, tough personally. It hasn't been good.

MATT WILLIAMS: I certainly feel honored -- the Gold Glove is, in my opinion, the highest award, for me, anyway, because it is voted on by the opposing managers and coaches, the guys you play against. And it makes me feel honored, and I'm sure it makes everybody that wins one feel honored that they have a chance to win it, because the other coaches appreciate what you do out there, so it's nice.

MATT WILLIAMS: No, I think you have to be more aggressive on a night like tonight. When the grass is wet the ball tends to skip off the grass, so you have to be as aggressive as you can, it has a --

MATT WILLIAMS: No, I think the approach is the same, and that's to be as aggressive as we can, try to take it to the other team, regardless of who we're playing or what situation it is, we want to be as aggressive as we can on the bases, go first to third, things like that. We want to try to put pressure on the other team, make them make the great play to beat us. We swung the bats well tonight and played good defense.

MATT WILLIAMS: Once again that's being aggressive. Jeff Newman, that's his call to send me there. And I saw Charles move up the line to catch the throw, so I tried to slide around him. Usually I hurt myself trying to do that, but it was okay tonight.

MATT WILLIAMS: We knew going into Spring Training that we had a lot of sinker ball pitchers, they're going to induce a lot of ground balls. And the old adage the pitcher's best friend is a double play. If we turn those double plays it gets them out of jams, it limits their pitch counts. They can go deeper into the game. So we take a lot of pride in the fact that we work hard and we try to do the best job we can as far as the infield goes. They're going to depend on us to make the plays behind them so we have to do that.

MATT WILLIAMS: I'm not going to get into my personal business, but as far as professionally, it was just inconsistent. I had good weeks and bad weeks, but it was inconsistent, and every baseball player wants to be as consistent as he possibly can be, you help your team more in that fashion, so the most inconsistent year of my career so far.

MATT WILLIAMS: I don't know, it's always important to get -- if Manny can go deep there and get us two runs, that's great. It's always important to get off early in the game. Once again that gets back to putting pressure on the other club. They have to scrap to get back into the game. So that was huge, that set the tone for the evening. If that's a double-play ball, it may be a different story, but Manny did a nice piece of hitting it out of the park.