The players have been aware that they were going to be involved with this for a while now. But we're taking three catchers for a reason. You can't expect to catch this much this early without getting sore. Fourteen pitchers is another obvious thing. As for the players, we'll take things on an individual basis. For example, Ken Griffey told me he'd be ready to go. |
The rest of the world has caught up. |
The Rocket's ready to go. He's fired up. He'll set the tone for this team very effectively. |
The starters are just going to go three innings at the beginning of the tournament. But we think the strength of our team is the relievers. |
The toughest aspect is sitting around watching other games go on while you're not playing. We need to have a little cooperation in the pool. That's our fate. |
The World Baseball Classic is going to have an extraordinary impact on the sport. The magnitude of the Classic is enormous. It's designed to further expand the international appeal of baseball, and I think its mission is very similar to XM, which has done an amazing job of adding to the growth and popularity of baseball by giving fans greater access to the game. |
There was a lot said about Team USA not taking this tournament seriously, but there are a lot of guys hurting in that locker room. |
There's no better big-game pitcher than Roger Clemens. |
There's no doubt in my mind they understand what the goal is now. |
There's not a man on this team who doesn't want to give him that ball one more time. |
These stars don't allow themselves to be embarrassed -- that's why they're stars. They don't take a minute for granted. They can laugh and joke around, but they get their work done. |
These things happen. I mentioned before [the tournament] that there were seven or eight teams capable of beating anyone else on a given night. |
They are a little bit of a mystery because of the uncertainty of who they are going to bring. We hear that the roster that they have submitted has an average age of 24. That's a pretty young roster. It's kind of surprising, but everybody expects that they will have a very representative team. |
They pitched very effectively to the heart of our order. |
They understand the role now is to win. |