MLB WORLD SERIES: INDIANS v MARLINS

October 26, 1997

Jim Leyland

JIM LEYLAND: What I want to do is separate as much as I could, right, left, right, left, pretty much all throughout the line-up because in Game 7 everybody is going to use every pitcher they have to, so I tried to stay away from a situation where you could get too right and too left for guys, if I could and I just felt moving him down would be better off, and Dutch is swinging good, so sandwich Alou between the two. You've got Alou behind Daulton, so I finally figured it out about 3 o'clock this morning.

JIM LEYLAND: Well, maybe a little bit, but not a huge factor, I don't think. I think he's trying to lift the ball a little bit right now too much, probably because of the leg, got into a couple of double plays. I think he's conscious of it, and I think he's gotten in the habit of trying to lift the ball too much the last couple of games. So get him down and hopefully get him away from that.

JIM LEYLAND: No, I did it at home.

JIM LEYLAND: I don't really know. I just think that to me this is great for baseball, this is the 7th game, and I feel very comfortable with Leiter, I know everybody is making a big deal that he's had a couple of bad starts. He's certainly capable. He's one of our two veteran guys in our whole rotation now with the absence of Fernandez, and I think a lot of times people kept saying, are you going to start Al Leiter in Game 7, absolutely. First of all, who else would you pick, and second of all I feel very comfortable with him. We have what we have and I feel very comfortable that Al is very capable of throwing a gem tonight. I can't predict what's going to happen, but certainly he's one of our veteran guys.

JIM LEYLAND: Well, yeah. If you talk about everybody, Kevin Brown and Livan Hernandez will not pitch. And Bobby still has the slight pull. But other than that, yes, everybody is ready to go, to my knowledge, I haven't seen anything in the clubhouse that would indicate anything different.

JIM LEYLAND: I wouldn't discuss something like that during the 7th game of the World Series. I've got my mind on the 7th game of the World Series, I wouldn't discuss anything like that.

JIM LEYLAND: Well, I think it's fantastic, the baseball part of it is fantastic, from the fan's standpoint. I think obviously it's fantastic. There's a lot of little aggravating things that go on behind the scenes, when you're involved in one. But it's been absolutely fantastic and I think Ken Singleton told me that it really won't hit me until probably this winter some time. But I think I figured it out today, I don't want to say it, because I'll probably be misquoted. I added it up, if you went four times 65 or 67, how many people have been in the games at Pro Player Stadium, so I'll let you figure it out. The amount of people and the excitement have been unbelievable. All around town. I live way out in the country, they've got the Marlin flag flying where I drive into the complex I live in. It's been unbelievable for Florida as it has been for Cleveland. The excitement, like I said, I flew my nephew and his wife down here, they went home today, they were here for one game. They were in awe with what happened last night, with the people and the videos before the game. And it's also unbelievable how many people are working during this thing. Like when I drive in to see all those dishes and trucks, it boggles my mind how big this thing really is.

JIM LEYLAND: Oh, boy, no, I don't really think so. Probably the one that I would remember was I want to say Minnesota -- I believe it was -- I think it was Minnesota and I guess it was the Braves when Jack Morris pitched a shutout and I think it was Larkin, the pinch hitter got the hit to win the Game 1-0. I believe that was right. The reason that was because Jack Morris had pitched for me in the Minor Leagues. So that's one that I had paid special attention to and obviously was very excited about for Jack. And of course having managed Pittsburgh, I remember the Mazeroski thing, which was obviously pretty big. But I was, I don't know, 15 or 16 at the time. But I think that in the Yankee Dome or whatever they called it, when that was going on up there, I had been to the World Series up in Minnesota when they played the Cardinals. So I knew what was going on up there and how loud that place was. That may have been the loudest place I've ever been was the Metro Dome for the World Series.

JIM LEYLAND: Well, I think it's a little weird, to be honest with you. I think we started out really in one direction and I think the organization knew and Mr. Huizenga wanted to make the adjustments to stay with the direction, but also I think everybody figured out something that I've talked about for a long time, I think the Atlanta Braves have been the best for quite a while, and I think what they did was, I think they used all three -- I think there's three vehicles you have to use if you're going to be successful. You have to use your farm system, which everybody says they're going to use their farm system, that always sounds good, and it's very important, don't get me wrong. But I think you also have to make a good trade here and there and I think you also have to use free agency, and I think we're really exactly there when you talk about us right now, that's exactly what we've done. We've got our farm system. We obviously made some trades and we also used free agency pretty good last winter. So I think the Atlanta Braves have done that better than anybody, and now that's what we've done, and I think it proves that there's something to that, because here we are in the 7th game of the World Series.