Jim Hendry Certainly Quotations

We've always had an interest in Greg. He's certainly earned the right to pitch wherever he wants. We're hopeful he'd like to come back and finish where he started.

When things don't go as well as we all planned, there's enough fingers to be pointed everywhere, but it's certainly not coming from (management),

I have a lot of fondness in my heart for Corey. I feel badly at what happened last year. I certainly will try to do what's best for the Cubs first and what's best for Corey second.

He's had a great career there. He's earned the right to make a decision of whether to stay or leave. I'm not privy to what his thought process is. He's a great player and if he chooses not to go back, then we certainly would have some interest.

We've found ourselves significantly behind the Cardinals by the month of May or the middle of May. Credit them for how well they get out the gate. Certainly over the winter we'll look at avenues to try to get out of the gate better and maybe approach things differently.

He's athletic, he's got some pop in his bat, he can play quality defense ... he runs well. He's 30 years old, and he certainly has a lot of upside left in him.

He certainly made no secret of the fact he wanted to be a Cub for a long time, and we certainly wanted to accommodate him. He's a special player.

Some of the things written about Dusty and him wanting to leave the Cubs a year ago were completely unfounded. I think people had him in two or three different places he certainly never had any interest in going.

We're certainly glad to have it done. Our stance is always to try to work with the representative, John Boggs, to a conclusion of fairness to avoid the process if we can. This was something we wanted to do, and hopefully Mark will have a great 2006.

We're certainly at the point where we're not going to take any chances. He's had a zero complaint camp. When he said he had a little snag today, there's no sense of him coming out on Thursday.

Almost every club has a job up for grabs. We're coming off the kind of year where we certainly don't want to act like we have every piece of the puzzle in place when you get here. You have to have some battles, and they're healthy. That's the way it is.

He would probably pitch now if we wanted him to even though we're certainly not headed to the postseason. Why wait any longer? Let's do what's best for his recovery time no matter what the procedure involves.

I didn't know he said that. His negotiations have been fine. We certainly don't want him to go, and I'm sure he doesn't want to go either. I'm sure he wants to get it done now or table it until later so he can stop talking about it or answering questions or thinking about it. He's done a terrific job out of the gate not letting it bother him.

I certainly don't think it could be a real significant injury. It's hard to believe someone could throw 98 miles per hour and have a serious arm problem. He hasn't had any discomfort at all.

I certainly don't think it could be a real significant injury because it's hard to believe that somebody can throw 98 mph and have a serious arm problem. So I'm hoping that what Dr. Kremchek told us is right on. He thinks this procedure will clear up the longer-term problem after 50 or 60 pitches.