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NL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: CARDINALS v METS

October 16, 2006

Willie Randolph

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: Game Five (Postponed)

Q. Will the benefit of this be that both teams can get their pitching staffs back on normal rest in order?
WILLIE RANDOLPH: Yeah, I guess you can look at it that way. To me, come to the ballpark, and you're ready to play, you want to play. I guess you can look at it that way. I don't see where this necessarily makes a big difference. It's one game and sometimes guys go and do real well on three days. You want to look at the bright side of it, you want to stay on schedule, yeah, I guess so.

Q. The treachery of the business you've chosen, baseball manager, Ken Macha did get fired today, and a guy, just immediate reaction, knowing the season they had and that they even swept a playoff series, just what does it tell you about the nature of the position that you hold?
WILLIE RANDOLPH: Well, you know how it goes. You've been around baseball a long time. You never like to see anyone lose their job of course. Not being involved or obviously being removed from what's going on over there, I really can't speak to that because I don't know what's going on there or why he got fired. Any time you've done the job that he's done since he's been there, you would think that he would still be there. I don't know what the circumstances was behind that.
Kenny and I go way back to the Minor Leagues. I've known Kenny a long time, excellent baseball man. A little surprised. But, you know, being in New York as long as I've been there, nothing really surprises me.

Q. We asked Tony on the same subject, the early reports were that there was some dissension, whatever you want to call it, between the players and Macha in Oakland, from your perspective as a manager, what should be the ideal relationship be between a manager and his players in terms of leadership, respect?
WILLIE RANDOLPH: Everyone has a different style. I don't think there's any blueprint to what it should be like. Some guys have a certain way that works for them. So it depends a lot on the team and the makeup of your ballclub and their personalities. Sometimes you have to be firm talking to certain guys and sometimes you have to back off a little bit. I don't think there's any real blueprint to it. It's the makeup of your ballclub and the personality of the manager. But for the most part, you have to be true to yourself and to what you do.

Q. Would you talk about the job your pitchers have done in keeping Pujols from going off on you the way Delgado and Beltrán have gone off on them?
WILLIE RANDOLPH: It's all about executing pitches, and sometimes being a little bit fortunate also. He's hit the ball pretty hard at times. We've positioned him pretty well for the most part. He's gotten a few hits but he's hit some balls hard at some people, too. So I'm not going to talk about how we're going to go after him. Just hope that you keep the ball in the ballpark against him and we've done that so far.

Q. You've been through a lot of years in baseball and around a lot of great hitters. In New York on a nightly basis, we see Carlos Delgado, charting all the at-bats in the book, is he one of the most studious and smartest hitters that you've been around?
WILLIE RANDOLPH: I would say so. I've been around quite a few but he takes it very seriously obviously. He studies the game and he brings that real cerebral approach to his teammates, obviously it's worked for him personally, but yeah, he's a guy who studies the game, gets involved in the situation of the game and he knows you're going to try to attack him and go after him. But he's going to have a plan to be ready to counteract that.
So he's always been that way and that's why he's probably one of the best hitters in the game. And it works for him. Some guys don't like to know. Some guys just kind of just react to what they see every day. But it's been successful for him. So that's the way it goes.

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