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.

He has physically never looked better to me. He's probably 10, 15 pounds lighter than last year and is just in great shape. He's done as much precautionary preparation work as anyone could. He has already been throwing and gotten ahead of where he usually would be at this time.

Well, I'll tell you, about a year ago in November the National Zoo had its first litter of cheetah cubs born. And when we had them debut, the very first day, we had over about 2,500 people file through just for them. And I don't mean to make it a popularity contest, but they were nowhere near as popular before their debut as this panda cub.

After experiencing as a manager what we went through a year ago, seeing some of those champagne parties that have taken place over the last couple of days has been pretty painful - to the point where I turn the television set off. I don't want to watch it because I've experienced it firsthand and I know what it feels like. So now, it's not a whole lot of fun to watch.

This year we started strictly enforcing it as it was written, ... I don't know, maybe I take the blame for not making the administrators as aware of the need to enforce it, but I told them over the summer that there was no question about what it was and that it needed to be enforced.

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