For all their woes, Cubs right there

On the eve of the 2009 baseball season, GM Jim Hendry said he had only one concern.

It's the same one that keeps all GMs up at night: health.

As the man in charge, you can control a lot about your club, but you can't forecast injuries, and a slew of them can ruin a season and make a GM miserable.

Sure enough, the Cubs have been hit hard thus far, but Hendry isn't ready to push the panic button, nor should he, and he's also not blaming injuries for the Cubs' sluggish start.

"We would have liked to have played better,'' Hendry said before Tuesday night's loss. "That said, we're only a couple back in the loss column, our starting pitching's been good, and our pen is starting to shape up.''

The Cubs can't have played any worse, or have had more injuries, and yet they're still right in the thick of it.

It's nothing like 2007 when at this point in the season they were nine games under .500, 71/2 games behind division-leading Milwaukee, and trailing four teams.

They did rally that season, but this year they can clearly see the teams in front of them, despite losing a couple of starting pitchers, the right fielder, third baseman, and a couple of backup infielders.

They've also received no offense from catcher, first, second and right, no one's really lit it up yet, they're 13th in the N.L. in runs, and the bullpen was atrocious to start the season.

But despite all the injuries, suspensions, poor performances, different lineup combinations, and an eight-game losing streak, the Cubs sit just off the pace in what continues to be a very mediocre division.

It's not like they're chasing the Dodgers, so when the Cubs get their stuff together, you have to believe the result will be the same as the last two seasons, when the Cubs won the Central.

"Half the guys who were struggling are starting to come on, so if we can get a little healthier, we still feel good about our club,'' Hendry said. "The next few weeks are big, but I think we proved against a good Dodgers club that we can play good baseball.''

As for whether the Cubs will have the financial flexibility to improve the club in July, Hendry said, "I hope so.

"Look, we've been treated well from that standpoint, but hopefully the ownership situation will be resolved soon and we can get some clarity on that.

"Even so, the payroll was fair to begin the season and that club we started with was picked by everyone, and there's no reason to think we can't win with that club.

"Guys have to play up to their ability, and then if we can add some things, that would be great. Either way, I still like our club a lot.''

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Questions and tears

She was going to show her twin sister a new spot she'd found along the Yuba River — a Sunday afternoon bike ride the family never finished.
Lucinda Gillis, 32, was killed when a driver, later arrested on suspicion of hit-and-run driving, DUI and vehicular manslaughter, struck her as she was about to complete crossing a street near the Wal-Mart in Linda.
"We were supposed to do a lot more things," her sister Lucretia Ann Boyman said Monday of plans the two had. "This is not right. This is so not right."
Identical twins — down to their teeth, Boyman said — the two had lived near each other all their lives.
Gillis' mother spoke Monday about her Bicentennial babies — her twins born in 1976. "I always said I had one for reach 100 years we were a country," Anita Simmons-Gonzalez said. She held a report card of Gillis when she was a student at an elementary school in Auburn before the two girls began at Placer High School.
Their late father, Michael Boyman, was awarded a Bronze Star for his heroism in 1968 as a Marine in Vietnam, and Gillis was a young woman determined to do the best for her own family, Boyman said.
"My sister was a soldier," Boyman said, referring not to military service but the young woman's commitment to her two boys, Dominic Robles, 12, and Michael Robles, 15.
Gillis was studying at Phoenix University and wanted to become an accountant, said family members who recalled their move from Placer to Yuba County so the boys would grow up in a small town.
Gillis on Sunday had ridden her bike behind her twin sister so she could keep an eye on Boyman's 3-year-old in a bike seat.
Boyman spoke about seeing her sister on the ground after the vehicle struck her, the helicopter that airlifted Gillis from the accident site at North Beale Road and Feather River Boulevard —and the hope her sister's injuries weren't fatal.
"I heard she had a pulse," Boyman said. "But she didn't make it,"
"You just have to love the people you're close to," Boyman said. "It seems like they're here one minute and gone the next."
The family plans to bury Gillis in Colfax in Placer County.
Andrew Louis Cornett, 24, of Linda, was arrested Sunday after allegedly fleeing from the scene, abandoning his pickup truck a short distance away and going to a neighbor's shed.
Cornett was on probation after his 2007 conviction for a felony DUI with injury. He had a prior DUI conviction in 2004, law enforcement reported.
Cornett was also named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit after a 2001 incident at Lindhurst High School. He drove a pickup truck through basketball courts on the campus and struck a player, fracturing the youth's ankle, according to the lawsuit.
His bail in connection with Sunday's arrest was $100,000, jail records state.
"He took my sister's life," Boyman said. "There better be justice."


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Former NBA star Charles Barkley arrested on suspicion of DUI

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Charles Barkley was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol early Wednesday.
An officer with a task force that targets drunken driving saw the former NBA star run a stop sign about 1:30 a.m., Gilbert police Lt. Eric Shuhandler said. Barkley was in Scottsdale's Old Town area, a trendy spot in the Phoenix area.
"I am disappointed that I put myself in that situation," Barkley said in a statement to The Associated Press. "The Scottsdale police were fantastic. Now it is a legal matter and I will not comment any further as it is a legal matter."
The 45-year-old Barkley, now an NBA television commentator, failed field sobriety tests after the officer smelled alcohol on him, and he was arrested. Barkley declined to submit to a breath test but was given a blood test. The results weren't immediately available.
Barkley was cited and released. His car was impounded and he left in a cab, Shuhandler said. Police described Barkley as co-operative, adding it is customary to release people after an arrest on suspicion of DUI.
"There was nothing unusual about how he was taken into custody," Shuhandler said. "He was treated exactly like we treat anybody else."
In 1997, Barkley was arrested in Orlando, Fla., and charged with hurling a bar patron through a glass window after the man tossed a glass of ice at him. The case was settled after Barkley was fined and performed community service.
Barkley was selected as one of the NBA's 50 greatest players in 1996 and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006. He played 16 seasons for Philadelphia, Phoenix and Houston and was on the 1992 and 1996 Olympic teams. Barkley was an 11-time NBA all-star and league MVP in 1993.
He starred at Auburn and last month was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

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