Tony Russa Played Quotations

He's done everything. Gotten big hits, played defense well, run the bases. He's playing today, so he's still in the mix.

That's the way we played all year long, ... Our pitchers are not afraid to pitch to contact and get the groundball.

That's the way we played all year long. Our pitchers are not afraid to pitch to contact and get the groundball.

That would be unique. You play the schedule, however it works. They've played us very well, so I'm not going to go in there and expect anything but another tough series.

To me, 2002 was so personal and emotional. I believe that you create your own destiny, but it was almost like there was a plan for us. I don't feel that this time. I feel this is more normal. The reason we've won is because we've played the best. If we play the best in the postseason, we should win. And if we don't, we'll get beat. But 2002 was the only year I had the feeling it was inevitable.

If you look at last year, we had Scott playing and he had some really big hits, but overall he was really banged up, he wasn't the same the last two months, ... This year we lost four regulars, three of them are boppers, and the guys that took their place did a terrific job of handling the bat, so we played a little different game.

The Cubs have played us so tough all year, ... We had (Greg) Maddux going against us so we knew it would be a hellacious ballgame and it was.

A guy like that, could he do enough to be the dominant player at the position? Depends on what kind of offensive player he becomes. He's got a live bat. He could hit 15, 20 home runs if he played every day. He's just got to find a way to do it.

Everybody has their strong points, and that's an important one for him. He's done everything. He's gotten big hits, he's played defense well, he has run the bases.