Page 104

2014 Kansas City Gameday HQ

GDHQ: You’ve been described as stubborn. Would you agree? GLAVINE: laughs I agree. I think sometimes that word has a negative connotation to it but I think I was stubborn in a good way. I was stubborn because I had expectations of myself and expectations of things that I thought I was capable of doing and, come Hell or high water, I tried to do those things. I was stubborn sometimes in knowing that everybody in the ball park knew what pitch I was going to throw but I was going to throw it anyway because my mentality was that if I execute the pitch the way that I want to I’m going to out-execute the hitter that’s in the batter’s box. Staying stubborn meant not giving into hitters’ counts. There are two schools of thought. When you’re behind in the count you make the guy put the ball in play because you can’t defend the walk. My school of thought was, ‘I’m not just going to throw it down the middle and potentially give up an extra-base hit or a home run. If I walk the guy I’ll get a ground ball with the next guy.’ I think in large part I was able to do that because, again, I had confidence in what I was doing but also confidence that when push came to shove I was going to command the ball and throw strikes. Walks weren’t going to be an issue. But, yeah, stubbornness was a big part of my package for sure. GDHQ: Wasn’t stubbornness your way of saying you trusted your stuff? GLAVINE: Absolutely. At the end of the day I trusted what I was going to inevitably try to be doing and if I got into a situation with a hitter where I got behind in the count and I wasn’t in the driver’s seat, well, I wasn’t going to give in. I’ll try and survive and fight the next battle and try and get ahead of the next guy. GDHQ: Bobby Cox seemed to get overlooked for Tony La Russa and Joe Torre. Do you think it’s nice for him to go in with them? GLAVINE: It is. I think, unfortunately, Bobby kind of gets caught up in the same rhetoric that the organization gets caught up in. When people talk about the success the organization had, it always ends with, ‘Yeah NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ARCHIVE


2014 Kansas City Gameday HQ
To see the actual publication please follow the link above