It looks that way from the outside. I don't know how it looks from the inside. With people threatening to pull sanctions and the various entities seeming to have hardened (their positions), do the players proceed to get ready as if it were going to happen?

If he's incapable of doing this, he's going to say so. He's said many times, he's not going to embarrass himself. He's a man of integrity. He cares about the team and cares about baseball.

He believes he's going to be ready for the start of the season. That's what we're counting on.

Would they want Jeff Bagwell now making $17 million, or opt for access to $15 million? I can understand that. But he's under contract. Sometimes you have to live with it.

It's a timing issue. Once he had surgery, he didn't gear up to be ready for Feb. 23 or even Spring Training. He was gearing up for Opening Day. Our hope, and I think everyone's hope, would be it he could have through Spring Training, and then a determination be made.

All Michelle wanted was to see for herself if she could do it or not. And when it became evident that was too much to ask, Michelle was the first to say she had too much respect for the Olympics and for this country to go out there when she knew she couldn't. Here, it's a different sport and a little different situation. But I think you could plug in the same kind of comments with Jeff -- if it comes to that.