AL DIVISION SERIES: RANGERS v YANKEES

October 6, 1999

Doug Melvin

DOUG MELVIN: I think he's gone beyond expectation. I think he is, if not, the most underrated player in the game today. I don't think people give him the publicity that they do, but he's very consistent. He puts up the numbers he puts up, if you look at it, he's one of the most consistent hitters in the '90s. He brought us leadership qualities and skills. I'm not sure people gave him credit for that. There's a lot of intangibles he brought to our ballclub. He's played hurt through the whole year. The left-handed bat in the middle of the order, hitting behind Juan was real big for us. It proved it during the year; he had a great year and helped the club have the best team record in franchise history. And he was a huge part of that.

DOUG MELVIN: You know, I know that the guys are going out there and giving it their best. We're a very good offensive ballclub, and we'll break out of it somewhere along the line here, just hope it's sooner than later. You know, there's no doubt they think about it. But it's just too good a line-up, the players are too good offensive players to not go out there and put up a good run. You know, you have to give credit to the Yankees, too. The Yankees pitchers are very good. And I think last night, you know, if Juan's ball dropped -- Bernie doesn't make a great catch, Rafael's ball goes into the corner, it's a different ball game. They made two great defensive plays on two balls that were hit, and we focused on each game at a time during the season we did that, we didn't get too up or too down after losses, and we have to continue to get the same approach. We can't worry about last night's game, it's behind us now. Let's see what we can do tomorrow night.

DOUG MELVIN: Yeah, I think so. I think that the general managers meetings, it was brought up last year. I assume it will be brought up again. It just doesn't seem right that the number one seed doesn't have to play the wild card, and I hope that we can at least bring that up in hopes of getting a change.

DOUG MELVIN: I think it was just because of the rivalry during the year that -- was what I had understood it to be. The number of games they play in their own division and the scheduling and that they didn't want them facing each other right off the bat. But it does create a lot of problems.

DOUG MELVIN: It's important. It's important. I haven't been told how many chances I get yet, so -- (Laughter.) I guess that's important, too. But I know it's important to do that. It was important for us to get to post-season five years ago, franchise went 25 years without getting to post-season. We've done it three of the last four years, and we need to keep building on that. And, you know, you can look at it and I think the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians have had a great run in the '90s and they've only had one World Series. Our goal without looking at other teams, is to win the World Series. We feel this is the best chance we've had; this is the best team we've had, and we still think that we have the team that can do it. But you do have to win a -- you do have to win a series before you can think of the World Series, and that, but we all know what we have to do. It's just been -- Yankees have made it difficult for us.

DOUG MELVIN: Well, you know, I think that getting to post-season is very difficult, and teams that get to post-season year after year have accomplished a lot because this sport -- it's the most difficult to get to post-season of all the major sports. All the other teams you can get into post-season with a below .500 record in some cases. In baseball you can win 95 ball games and not get to post-season. People don't quite understand how difficult it is to go 162 games and be consistent and get to post-season. You have to appreciate that, so you have to appreciate what the Indians have done, what the Braves have done, and, you know, the Blue Jays have won a couple World Series' I believe in the '90s. The Yankees, I don't know the exact numbers, too, they won twice too. First off, it's very difficult to get to post-season, and I hope that the Rangers have the reputation of getting to post-season, but now we have to build a reputation of winning in post-season. That's our next step. So, you know, those teams that I mentioned, the Yankees, the Indians, the Braves, all need to be recognized. And there's other clubs, too, the Houston Astros don't really get the credit they deserve. Maybe down there in Texas, we're a little further away from all the media -- the national media, but the Astros are a team that, they've done a great job in the '90s and have a great team, great franchise. And they should be recognized, too.

DOUG MELVIN: That's a tough question. I've asked that question myself. Would you want to win one World Series and not be in post-season for the next 10 or 15 years. I think you'd ask people and they'd have different answers for that. The Marlins did it. San Diego got to the World Series last year and they had a more difficult time this year. My feeling is you have to build -- get into post-season and eventually it will happen. Sort of use that Denver Broncos theory. The Broncos did it enough times, it eventually happened. You have to focus on that, if you get there enough times, it will happen.

DOUG MELVIN: Well, is he batting left-handed or right-handed? (Laughter.)

DOUG MELVIN: Left-handed, Johnny Oates, he'll have a tough call there. Bernie's a great ball player. I was scouting director here in '85 when Bernie was signed. We snuck him over here from Puerto Rico and put him in a baseball camp up in Connecticut to get him signed. It was sort of a highlight of my career as a scouting director to sign a player of Bernie Williams' stature. I remember at the time we gave him a signing bonus of $15,000. Now he's making a few dollars more than that, and well-deserved. But as Rich said, he's a complete player. You know, the thing that I admire about Bernie is his patience at the plate. The pitches that Aaron Sele threw last night with two strikes on him, for me, 95 percent of the hitters probably swing at those pitches. He has great patience at the plate. Whether it's his reputation that he's got great patience or not, he's got a .400 on-base percentage every year. He may not hit 40 homers, knock in 150 runs, but the guy gets on base. When he gets on base, he can run, he takes extra bases. He's a very talented player. And I think for us to win ball games, we need to face Bernie Williams without runners on base, like the situation you brought up. And that's important. If you look last night, I believe he came up, his first at bat, one man on; second at-bat, two men on. I think five men were on base when he came on and he capitalized on that. Then he made a very nice catch to prevent us. He took away two runs. That was a big situation. That ball gets by him, two runs probably score and we're sitting with a man on second base with one out. So really, Bernie Williams was the key to the game. Everybody can see that. I think the best thing is to face -- the number of times you're going to face those kind of hitters without anybody on base is the whole key.

DOUG MELVIN: I get nervous all the time when you're sitting down there. If I sit down there, I've had my family with me when I sit in the club box next to the dugout. I keep telling them, watch the ball game. You have to watch the ball game. But I don't know what you could do to protect. I know some dugouts maybe have had the screens up in front, but it's difficult to see the game from the dugout when they had those screens. But today's ballparks, and this is obviously an older ballpark, but the modern-day parks and all the new parks, the fans have requested being closer to the field and closer to the action and that. So maybe that's something that has to -- you have to rethink. But I'm surprised that more people don't get hurt in the stands the way the ball comes off the bat. And there's even more bats going in the stands than ever before. Seems to be more broken bats, I think there's a story, Steve Yeager got hurt one year, I remember Butch Wynegar got hurt in the on-deck circle one time. Through the history of baseball, there's been a lot of people, players hurt and that. But having the dugouts close to the field, I know in Vero Beach in spring training, their dugouts are right there on the field, too. Very close. It's dangerous. I'm not sure exactly what you could do except to rethink how close the stands are on the field, whether you want it that way or want more foul territory. If I'm a pitcher, I want more foul territory, right?

DOUG MELVIN: Yeah, you think about it quite a bit. You know, in our last year, ran through my mind to try to sign him in Texas as a free agent and that. We were pursuing the number-one starting pitcher that everybody wants us to get and that. But I was in San Alberta (phonetic) last year on a week's vacation and I got a call from Bernie Williams. I returned the call and Bernie was on the phone. He said he just signed with the Yankees, I didn't know what he was calling about, whether to express interest or not. He had called and that and he had signed with the Yankees. I said well, that's good Bernie, that's probably the best place for you, to stay there and have a great career and fall under the great tradition of Yankee centerfielders and that. It went through my mind last year to heavily get involved with him. But at the time, we were a pretty good offensive club and our needs have been for pitching. I was fortunate enough to get a guy like Rafael Palmeiro and that. But it goes through my mind about Bernie. He's a great individual and, you know, he'd be nice to have in our ballclub but it's not going to happen.

DOUG MELVIN: You're going to have to beat the Yankees anyway. I think that's sort of the attitude of most teams. I was talking to John Heart yesterday, we were talking about who we would have rather faced. He said the same thing, when you get down to it, you either face Pedro Martinez or you face the Yankees or you face that Cleveland line-up. All four ballclubs are very good ballclubs. I know some of the teams have a fear of facing our line-up, too. And, you know, going up against our bullpen and our starting pitching has improved dramatically -- I think it's better than what people give it credit for. So you can't take time to dwell on that. Your focus has to be on the immediate, and that's playing the Yankees and, you know, getting over this hump of not beating them in post-season. I know we went through a couple years not beating the Seattle Mariners. I think we put that behind us and played better against the Mariners. We went through not playing well in the Texas heat. We were going to blow the chance to be in post-season, so this is just another hurdle. It's a big hurdle, the Yankees are, but I think we can overcome it.

DOUG MELVIN: No, Rick's had a good year for us. I think he's pitched as well as last year. Didn't win as many games. I got to ride back in the limousine with him here, too, back to the hotel. (Laughing). No, Rick had a great year for us. He is still recognized, him and Aaron Sele, when I talk about their pitching, they don't get credit for what they've done. If you look at the two of them and the number of games they've won for us the last two years, there's not a whole lot of teams that can throw two pitchers that have won the number of games they've won for us. We feel very confident when Aaron Sele and Rick Helling go out. We feel they give us a chance to win the ball game. Rick talked about his curve maybe not being as consistent as in the past, but on any given day, you know, he can go out there and pitch a quality game for us. Like I said, I think earlier on in the year, his earned run average was better and he had pitched better for us. He talks about his mechanics being consistent, and Rick knows what he has to do, but we're here in post-season again. We won 95 games, the best in franchise history, and Rick Helling, Aaron Sele, and the ballclub's all deserving of that, too.

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