We have hired umpires to work the games. All the games will go on. Qualified umpires are going to be out on the field and we?re going to move forward.

With a strike, we have the right to replace them and we?re not going to risk losing any games or risk our major-league partners? interest in development.

That's something we got to work on. It's been two games in a row that we allowed a team to come back. It made it a little too exciting, which I guess is fun for everybody else. But it stinks for us. I know a lot of people on the sideline were biting their fingernails a little bit.

We're really just replicating the system we already had in place. We at this point have made our last, best and final offer. I don't really want to speak for our negotiating team on what they'll do in the future. That's really speculative. But we are prepared to just move forward in the system we have.

There?s a pretty good disparity between views that are primarily economic. We did reach a point where we declared impasse and imposed our last, best and final offer.

Oh ... it's just another game. We still have another (16 games) left. That's when the real important games will be, those last seven of the year. That's when you really need a quality start for your team.