NL DIVISION SERIES: BRAVES v ASTROS

October 12, 2001

Gerry Hunsicker

GERRY HUNSICKER: I guess given what's happened in the world the last three or four weeks, another distraction doesn't seem all that big a deal. We've had a lot to deal with on and off the field and throughout the world. So, I guess I just sort of take it in stride. It's something I wish we didn't have to deal with. It's a critical time for the franchise, a very important game here coming up. You'd like to think that everybody is focused on winning that game and doesn't have to be side tracked by anything else. So it's unfortunate from that standpoint.

GERRY HUNSICKER: It's hard to say. I really don't think it's going to be a distraction once the game starts. It's like most distractions that are happening internally, once the bell rings, the guys take the field. I really believe that they have the ability to block out things like this and focus on winning the baseball game.

GERRY HUNSICKER: Well, it is amazing. It's remarkable. I've always had the utmost respect for John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox. To me, this organization over the last decade has been the model organization. Yes, they've had the money to spend. And that certainly is an asset that most of us don't have. But it's pretty obvious that that in itself doesn't make you a winner. You've got to use it wisely, and their track record speaks for itself. They find a way to win. That's the mark of a true champion. Regardless of what adversities come your way, you find a way to win. I know that they haven't been to the World Series and won the World Series as much as I'm sure the people here in Atlanta would like to see, but it's just like us. You're always victims of your own success. It's just, everything is relative. Everybody starts out the season wanting the same goal, and that's to get to and then win the World Series. Obviously that goal is a very, very elusive and rather impractical one. Because only one team from each league is going to get there. When you put it all together, I think they've done a great job here.

GERRY HUNSICKER: What was the question? (Laughter). I do agree with that. There's not too many nights that go by, especially this time of year, where I just keep thinking about, "Why do we constantly get into this situation where we have such a terrific offense, and yet we get to the post-season and it doesn't seem to fire?" You think four out of five years, just the odds would catch up with you and you'd have one post-season where you fire. In fact, I was just talking to Larry about it again. A few minutes ago. It's very frustrating. I know it's certainly frustrating to the guys. All I can say is, and I haven't done this yet myself, but I know what the list is going to look like, and that is go through the exercise, go back through post-season, and come up with a list of guys that have done very poorly. And then come up with another list of guys that have had great post-seasons. You'd come up with two very interesting lists. If you then held up the list and said, "Which list of players would you like to form the nucleus of next year's team?" I guarantee you'd come up with a list of guys that have done poorly in post-season. I mean, when you condense a baseball season into a week or two weeks, any player, no matter how great he is, can have a bad stretch. That's about -- I mean, that's the only thing I know to try to explain what's happened. There's not too many -- well, there's an awful lot of people around the country that think we've got a pretty good offensive club. The question is, if you keep suggesting that there's a problem and a reason why we don't hit, then I challenge somebody to tell me, "are you suggesting we should get rid of Bagwell, Biggio, Alou?" Because those are the guys running out there every day. I would suggest to you that if any of those would be free agents, and Moises will, there won't be any lack of takers.

GERRY HUNSICKER: The organization is responsible for what happens on the field. We're all in this together. We should all share in the jubilation when things go well, and we should all share in the responsibility when it doesn't go well. That's the only way I know to approach this business. Unfortunately, in this business there's always going to be scapegoats. It's the nature of the business. The manager is the one that usually is focused on first, because he's looked at as the leader of the team. He runs the team on the field and pushes the buttons. I've said many, many times, "The manager gets way too much credit when the team wins and way too much blame when the team loses." Because it is a combined effort. Certainly, the players are in a position to have most of -- control most of the outcome. They're the ones playing. They certainly have to assume their share of the responsibility.

GERRY HUNSICKER: Well, I believe that we could add team speed to the line-up. The question is how much team speed would you have to add, A, to make a difference; and, B, to offset probably the run production that you'd be taking out of the line-up. That's the biggest problem for me. I mean, we could take one of our thumpers out of the line-up and put a speed guy in there. The question is are we better off. It seems to me one guy, or maybe even two speed guys, isn't going to dramatically change the team to come out in a net positive, because I believe in this day and age run production is really critical. Playing at Enron Field the home run becomes more important, speed less important. One of the things we tried to do back after the '97 season was to try to take the weight of the world off of Bagwell and Biggio's shoulder, and increase the firepower up-and-down the line-up. I think we've done that. Problem is, there's always trade-offs. And the trade-off to do that, at least with this team, has been a lack of speed.

GERRY HUNSICKER: He is for me. Again, I think too many times we judge managers on wins and losses. I'm not sure that that's the single biggest criteria anyway. It's certainly important. But to me, you got to try to objectively evaluate the talent that you've given the manager, and then over the course of a season or seasons, evaluate how effectively he's used that talent and has he gotten more out of that talent than he deserves or less out of that talent than he deserves? And then even then if it's less, how big a factor was he in the reason that that team underachieved?

GERRY HUNSICKER: I would say that somebody smarter than me probably has to answer that. I don't know. I do know this: You can take any year and follow a community's media from the time you break spring training until the end of the year, and I would suggest that it would be a pretty good script for a comedy show. Because the fact is over the course of a year there's going to be articles written about how stupid a manager is, and then a couple weeks later what a genius he is, and back and forth. I read clips in St. Louis earlier in the year, Tony LaRussa's in the last year of his contract. "The reason the Cardinals slipped this year is Tony LaRussa." Then you fast forward to the last day of the season when they beat us on Saturday and we came in to the last game to determine the division champion, and there was a glowing column on, "Now we finally have seen what a genius, what a brilliant manager Tony LaRussa is, because that was the reason that the Cardinals surged down the stretch." Art Howe the same way. His job was in jeopardy the last year or two. Now all of a sudden he's leading this young band of athletes against the perennial world champions. When you stop back and think about it, it's really silly, it's really rather silly the way we react to the daily winning and losing. Because in reality there's many, many factors that go in to winning and losing. Again, I come back to somebody's got to be the scapegoat. You can't fire the guys that are out there that have the most to say about winning and losing.