|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC POOL D: SAN JUANMarch 10, 2009Felipe AlouUbaldo JimenezPedro MartinezSAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO (Questions and answers translated from Spanish.) FELIPE ALOU: Thank you very much. Good evening. Playing this game, which I've been in for many different years, in so many different leagues, when you think you've seen it all, you find out you're wrong. We've seen something that we never imagined. Not only that the Netherlands team defeated us twice, but that they played three big games. And so that means that baseball is growing, the quality of baseball is growing. I remember when I was a young player, and the Dominican Republic, we would go to Aruba, and we would score tons of runs. And I didn't play against them professionally, nor did I manage there, but they have moved up a lot with the performance of several players who come from Holland, Europe, mainly pitchers. To me, for example, this may be my last job as manager. You never know. This is not the best way to say goodbye, because we were supposed to beat that team twice. But they beat us twice. We didn't hit. We had a couple of plays in the last innings, two plays that were not big leagues, but they played baseball that was practically perfect against us. I just want to congratulate them and their technical managing team. That should serve well for the future teams and Dominican teams in the Classic, if the Classic continues, to play better ball. And maybe get prepared better mentally. And I told the group quickly that there will be other Dominicans to representing the country, and maybe several of these young men that are representing it now will repeat. And we may be luckier. Q. Unfortunately, we are out. We did that again. Ubaldo, great performance. I want you to tell me about your performance tonight? UBALDO JIMENEZ: Good evening. When I came to the game, I came to concentrate only on following all the batters to go up front. And as everyone knows we have a limit of pitching to do. There's a limit of 70. I want to push them to get a lot of outs and not waste time. As I said before, no one before a game is going to think, well, tonight I'm going to strike 9 or 10 out. You never think that. You can only think I'm going to go and attack each batter and try to play a good game. And things will come out well, thank God. Q. Felipe Alou, you said before the tournament started that you would not accept anything less than reaching the finals. After being eliminated in the first round, what do you feel, and what does the Dominican performance deserve after this tournament? FELIPE ALOU: Well, I said two things. I said two things. When I was first offered the job to manage the Dominican team, I first said that if the best Dominican players didn't participate, I wasn't going to manage the team. After I said that, a series of the best Dominican players decided to play in the tournament. After that I said, if we did -- to me, if we did not reach the final games, it would be a failure. And it has been a failure because we didn't even finish the first round. Okay? But ever since I said that, I didn't say it more -- I said it at that time, but I never said it again. But when I said that, I was surrounded by the technical core of the big leagues, the big leaguers. We lost the pitching coach, which was the Milwaukee Brewers pitching coach, who was not able to come. But we substituted him with a pitching coach who did a great job, which is Mario Soto. And you can see what our pitching did. We knew we did not have the best Dominican team represented. Also because of these young men that came in and the guys that came in and the technical core, I decided to manage the team. In this Classic we had problems. As you can see all of the maneuvers to play with Ortiz. And after the training camp started, we used five players in first base. That is not usual for a Dominican team. We were left without a third baseman when Alex Rodriguez left the team. And thank God the veteran, the national player, Miguel Tejada he said, "I'll play third base", and he played it. And he played it well. We were carrying a burden, because we had players playing out of their positions. The last play when the game ended, which was quite a difficult play, our player had not started the game. He did not play the last game. There was a series of things that this week, even a team, when you have to play a game like this. We left a few men on bases. And bases loaded, no outs, we barely scored a run. There were times that we filled the bases. And all those things are unusual. There's something else for the Classic. We had the best bullpen I would say out of the whole Classic. That bullpen fought hard in all of the games. It turns out that the bullpen was only scheduled for one inning, because the great pitchers that I have in the bullpen are big league players, and as of this time only pitched one inning. The guys at the Netherlands, they pitched two and three innings, because they had no restrictions, because they're not the big relief pitchers that pitched 10 or 15 pitches. There were several restrictions on the number of pitches and organizations that they didn't want their pitchers to pitch more than one inning. That's no excuse. I repeat, that club played incredible ball, the Netherlands. And even against Puerto Rico last night. Q. I would like for the pitchers to answer quickly the following. In a normal big league game, Ubaldo if you were pitching, it was to try to pitch nine innings. What opinion do you have with the rules in the Classic that, as best you can play, you have to leave your team in a position that, almost forcefully, to change pitchers when you're pitching fine. PEDRO MARTINEZ: Good evening to all. I'm going to take the liberty to try to explain that situation. At this time I'm a free agent. If you asked me a year ago, the situation would have been different. That's why I chose this moment to dedicate to the Classic the seriousness of the dedication it deserved without signing with anyone. I do have offers, opportunities to sign, but I wanted to come to the Classic without restrictions from anyone, because I wanted to give the Dominican Republic this small amount of time that I did. I understand the restrictions in the Classic because of the short time that the players have to get prepared. The major leagues has, unfortunately, become more of a business than something to be proud of. We have to be clear on something. There's so many millions of dollars invested in baseball players that you have to understand, even if you don't want to, even if it hurts, you have to understand that unfortunately that is the reality of what's going on. The teams want to care for their players. And with the little time that we have to prepare, I believe that we were the only team that were all separated, separated -- you practice on your own without even practicing the plays until we got to Jupiter the first day, which was where we were to start practicing. The only team that were taken away from their manager and strategists was ours. That justifies this also in terms of why so many of those teams didn't allow or would not get the liberty either, to the key players that they have. I believe that that is the main reason why we have to go to young guys, who are not even trained to go out for five innings, they left on four. He pitched with that limitation. That's a huge investment for Colorado. If he gets hurt in a classic like this, it's a lot more unfortunate for him and his career, first of all. And for the team that he belongs to. Q. As you said before, it was easy to win before against Curacao, Aruba, and even Holland. That didn't come out in the Classic. Your country played strong against young players, 18, 19, 20, 23 years old that are not big leaguers right now. What do you in your experience as a manager say about those players? I repeat and I insist, young players, who are not major leaguers, competing against stars of the Dominican Republic, and they won not only once, but twice. FELIPE ALOU: Look, I was told -- and you weren't here when I said a couple of nights ago -- that I was advised by the Mets manager, he said, Felipe, because I'm a human being, I'm a big leaguer, and there is no doubt about that. The thing is the manager told me that he saw the previous Classic, Omar, from the Dominican, he said Felipe, the only problem with the Classic is that any team can win. He told me any unknown pitcher can do 5, 4, 6-0. He said all those things. I don't disregard anything. I think I've gone over board by praising the team where I know more than half of those players. Many have played with me, like Simon from Detroit, Ponson in San Francisco, Schoop from the Giants. I know a lot of those people, and Netherlands baseball has greatly improved. I would say in the next Classic you're going to have a better team because of your youngsters, from this team, the youngsters are going to want to play more ball. That's definite. The thing is I saw, and even when we saw part of the game with Puerto Rico, all of the energy that a young team can have, and as the Americans can say, they're the underdog, they have no pressure. They're not going to have it either. I'll tell you, things are going to get a little more difficult, because the next team that they play, they may have a first, regular first base player and regular third base player. They are going to keep on playing loose baseball. You have to give credit to their technical team that prepared them mentally. I talked with them. I sat with them at the Hotel San Juan to have a glass of wine with them, and they said, "Felipe, we're playing ball, the baseball we've always played without pressure. Because if we lose, everybody expects us to lose." And they played great baseball, and they're going to keep on playing better. I don't know what they're going to do in Miami, but I told them already before coming into here that I am going to be, as they say, pulling for them, because they're going to be the underdog with that group as they were here. Q. Pedro, the World Classic for you had to be seen in two ways. To play for the Dominican Republic, putting on your Dominican jersey for the first time in your life. A man who is going to the Hall of Fame when he announces five years later the retirement. But also the satisfaction of winning. Aside from the Dominican Republic, you also want to show yourself. You said you could sign, but maybe you were not offered what you wanted before the Classic, and it was, "Look, watch TV, watch the Classic, so you can see me." Explain those two factors to me and how they were mixed and how you feel personally. Forget what happened with the Dominicans. Explain how you feel personally in terms of this Classic? PEDRO MARTINEZ: That's a double edged knife that's a double edged sword. If I did not do well in the World Classic, I don't believe the question would be coming up right now, because unfortunately what I'm worth would make no sense to anyone. Isn't that right? I thank God, because I did good. But in terms of signing a contract, I repeat again, I could have signed a contract ever since I left to be a free agent. I did not want to. I wanted to dedicate passion, the respect, and dedicate the time that this Classic deserved. It's the first time I had a chance to represent my country, lost or not. I'm leaving with my head held high. I'm going to frame my jersey because I've got something to show my family, my children, and my country because I represented my country at least once. It is a little disappointing in a way because I would have wanted to win and competed further on and gotten further. I believe six innings, two good games, to me it's something simple. I've been in many situations, and I've gone through everything in baseball. And I don't believe that I'll take these six innings as a credit to what I can do in the big leagues. I believe my numbers are made. Right now whoever doubts what I can do, they have to look at my past. And I don't think it would take anyone by surprise that I would do that for a championship like this. Because, hey, listen, I don't think this is the last time that I'll have to go through to say, I am Pedro Martinez, and I'll do this. I believe I've proven that from the first day I signed with the Dodgers, that contract with the summer league. There's an incredible division of going out there, a competition that I can't describe. With help, I believe that I can do what any man can do. Q. I know how disappointed you guys were the first time you lost to the Netherlands. How much more so is this loss disappointing for you? FELIPE ALOU: Of course we're disappointed. We have been called the Republic of Baseball. I'm proud of my guys. They played hard. I don't see a guy loafing. The pitchers that threw, their arms, a lot of guys, for example, Rafael Perez, the lefty, what a lefty. The way this kid pitched, the way Pedro went out, maybe not being completely ready. When we talked to Pedro, Pedro left Miami and went to the Dominican to throw on short notice. The effort was there. The results didn't occur. Like I say, I'm not really going to go looking down. I'm proud of my guys. Every game we played, we played to win. And we should have won every game we played. Stuff happened. Like they say, stuff happens like they did in the first inning of the first game and the last inning of this game tonight. Those guys really wanted to win. When your guys want to win, you've got to tip your hat to them. This is not the end. We are going to continue to be the Republic of Baseball. Our guys will be healthier for the next Classic. I hope more than any time now after this defeat that there's going to be another Classic. The Republic of Baseball will avenge some of this stuff that happened. There will be a new manager, like I said earlier, new manager, new coaches, and things will change. That is my hope. Q. Felipe, when the team was breaking down, you said that you could see there's a people of 10 million persons having nightmares and watching this game in the Dominican Republic. What message do you have to those people right now? FELIPE ALOU: The message, as I said, it's unfortunate that I said it in English. We are a baseball power. We did not prove it. There have been two Classics where we did not get to the finals. Unfortunately, we weren't able to leave the first round, in spite of being so close, one run ahead. And with a guy who has all the qualities to be a major league closer. Look, everything just disappeared right then and there. We do know that our fans are the best fans in the world. Passionate, passionate. They will always believe that we can win. I'm like that, too, because I was a fan first, and I'm going to be a fan afterwards. The message is, don't be disappointed. We're going to have another great season, the Dominican players in the major leagues. I believe this is an upset because there have been several upsets. I was referring to upsets when we lost a series of players, star players because of injuries or things that I shouldn't even mention now. We suffered an upset, and the final upset was the upset with this loss. But the quality is still there, and that quality -- I believe that after this loss, the Dominican players are going to think about it and think deeply and say, "You know what, we have to win the Classic." That is my hope. That's what I want. And I believe that the fans have to be patient and wait for another Classic and to be able to put together the best Dominican team possible. Q. Felipe, prior to the Classic you talked about the tools that you wanted to take more advantage with was speed. FELIPE ALOU: We had Jose Reyes and the team that ran the less was the Dominican team. Let's be honest. We're talking about three big leaguers here. In a 9-0 game, you don't run. The 9-0 you can't run because there's a nonwritten rule that when a team wins like that you don't run. In the first game, the last out of the last game was running. That's when we lost the championship. Not the second to last. In that game we ran seven times in that game. If I recall correctly, that's how it was. You can look for it. We stole a couple of bases. We got killed with one man on third, one of the best base stealers. So tonight, once Reyes got there to first in that potential stealing situation, but the man was doing a quick step. And I decided to get Ortiz out of the game already, because he'd already played. I had asked for three turns, and it was his fourth turn. So I wanted Ortiz to bat and not get Reyes out. But it's good to know that that catcher, Jansen is his name. Jansen, had taken two men out. Taveras on third, and he had taken Ramirez out at second. The thing is the game ended there. And I think he had already taken him out. We did not use the speed because the opportunity did not come up to use it. I think that at this age, unless we're senile, we announced that we did have that speed, but they didn't -- we used it the first game, but it wasn't really worth it. I think it will be clear why the speed was not used because they did a great job. Those pitchers doing the quick step. They came ready for us. Somehow they got ready for us. Q. We heard the message from Felipe, but I also would like to hear Pedro, another Dominican symbol for the Dominicans. The people must be destroyed because their team lost. And Pedro, as a representative of the players, I would like him to send a message to the Dominican people. PEDRO MARTINEZ: I believe that the Dominican people have to understand that we as players came out there to play nine innings with the possibility that we could win or lose the game. Everyone who is Dominican has played ball, 98 percent of Dominicans have played baseball, even with rubber balls. They understand in order to win or lose a game, you have to go out in the field. Anything can happen. That's why you can't predict in baseball. Otherwise we would be champions whenever we came out because we were the favorites. I'm not going to ask them to be happy, because I know how it feels. And I'm a winner, but I don't like to go home losing. And I lost today. Only God knows, only God knows why we lost. I can't tell you that there was a lack of effort. That would be unfair to say. I can't tell you that the work was not done. So if you see those teams playing, anyone can say that anyone can win at any time. Let's leave the Dominican fans with great admiration, respect, gratitude for all the support they've given us for following us every single day. Not only in this Classic, but in the whole world there are Dominican players, the support of the Dominican fans is there. And with all due respect, I tell them we did come up short here, but we thank God for them giving us support every day. Q. Thank you all. Even though you lost it was an incredible game. The phone calls keep on coming in from outside. Congratulations to all the Dominican players because it was a wonderful game. For Felipe. If you had a chance to drink a glass of wine with Cheito at Hotel San Juan, what would you talk about? FELIPE ALOU: It was, really, the team that beat us twice, is a team that was tough. See how tough it was for Puerto Rico to beat them. Puerto Rico is a team that has -- most of the Puerto Rican players are major leaguers, if I'm not mistaken. Look and see how hard it was for Puerto Rico to win. To me the advice would be what Omar told me, any team can win the Classic, any team can win. Mainly when you're playing before players who are practically unknown. And playing before players full of energy, youth gives you that energy. They played 11 innings, and they were cool. Even after playing such a hard game against Puerto Rico last night. And we played hard, but in the end they played better. Maybe the right fielder wanted to catch that ball, and that was the only error that they had, because he played to win. You try to catch that ball, but before that they played perfect ball. To Cheito, I don't think I'm going to show up in public at the Hotel San Juan. Cheito, he saw the game, I'm sure. We professionals watch the games. He played against the Aruba team, and I believe that he is more or less prepared to figure out the way to beat this group. Although Puerto Rico has already qualified. I know they're going to face each other over in Miami. They're going to play a series of games against Puerto Rico, at least three games, if I'm not mistaken. But he knows. Cheito is a future major league manager. He's very smart. He was with Tony LaRussa who was his teacher. I'm sure he's prepared and had this team ready. He had them ready for us, but Cheito unfortunately, had to play with the other team. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|