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MLB ALL-STAR GAME

July 14, 2009

Charlie Manuel

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

Q. Just talk about your All-Star experience, first All-Star managing.
CHARLIE MANUEL: It's quite an experience, like when you start making all of those pitching changes and all the moves. Believe me, first time I ever did that. But I felt like it was a tremendous game. We gave up a couple runs early, and you know, we put three on the board in one inning and seemed like I felt we hit the ball better than five hits.
But at the same time, I give them all the credit in the world. They played a tremendous game. They got big hit when they had to, and they held us at the end. It felt like -- I like Howard up there, especially the situation he was in, and Nathan is a good pitcher, and like he won that time. That's kind of how it is.
I like the way we pitched, but of course their guys did a good job, too.

Q. How was it for Pujols? Obviously, his city and all of the things he had going on, how did it seem like he handled it to you?
CHARLIE MANUEL: He definitely wanted to do good, and I think everybody here, every fan in the stands wanted him to do good. But he played hard and he hit one ball real hard at third base. Young made a tremendous play on the ball. You know, it's just one of those nights. He couldn't hit the home run or the double or whatever. I think just one of those nights.
More than likely, probably two days from now, he'll probably get four hits.

Q. Again just back to the pregame, the festivities that baseball puts together, but with the President in the house and meeting him pregame, what was that like?
CHARLIE MANUEL: That's the second time I talked to him. I went to the White House earlier, and actually I was hoping he would bring us some luck.
But I know he's a White Sox fan, so like maybe he was over there in his heart maybe pulling for the American League, I don't know. I'll ask him if I ever see him again. (Smiling).

Q. You scared them on the deep balls in the 7th and the 8th, but how daunting is it when they can lineup Rivera and those guys?
CHARLIE MANUEL: They have some pitching, like I said the whole game was centered around pitching and we had a tough inning the first inning, but after that it was definitely a pitcher's game, and they have some horses and the back end of the bullpen is good. I felt like our guys did a super job, too.
They executed when they had to and they made the big play when they got a hit. That's all you can say. I felt it was a good game.

Q. What was that feeling like when you actually saw all your players out on the field and you had your guys out there, what did that feel like?
CHARLIE MANUEL: I tell you, how did it feel like, you know what, I felt good about it. It was a tremendous -- like I enjoyed it. Definitely it gets your motor running, but like I said before, I'm making so many moves in the game and changing so many players and I'm keeping up all of these player moves, it seemed like the game went real quick.
You know, I think that it was moving fast and we had to keep up with it, and I didn't have time to really get into it like I can some games. But if there had been more offense in the game, it probably would have been different.

Q. Just one bit of news that involves your team. There's a report that Pedro has one year and he's done. Can you tell us if that's happened and what he would be to our team?
CHARLIE MANUEL: Basically what I've been saying, the things I've heard about Pedro is that we have got guys watching him throw, and they saw him a couple of times, and they said he was throwing much better than he was last year, and that he was in tremendous shape.
Then I also hear today that he took a physical. That's about the extent of what I've heard.

Q. What went into your decision to bring Ryan Franklin into the game when you did?
CHARLIE MANUEL: Basically, what we counted on was the fact that like we was going to start a list of them, and if we didn't get down to the pitcher to hit for him, we were going to bring Franklin in. Once Franklin was up, the way we kind of lined up, we decided to bring Franklin in and let him pitch one and let it kind of start going that way. We kind of changed our strategy a little bit right there at that point as far as what we wanted to do with our pitching.

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