By Bruce Miles | Daily Herald Staff
Published: 10/9/2008 8:25 AM
The idea that the Cubs are a bunch of vandalizing hooligans holds no water with Cubs general manager Jim Hendry. Hendry on Wednesday said he'll settle up with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the wake of someone on the Cubs breaking a water pipe in the dugout after Saturday night's 3-1 loss to the Dodgers in the National League division series.
The Dodgers swept the Cubs in three games.
"No. 1, when I saw it (the resulting flood) happen before we left, I spoke to the Dodger people and told them if there was any damage, we certainly would be accountable for it," Hendry said. "The clubhouse people informed me that it was about the fourth or fifth time it had happened this year.
"I didn't see exactly what happened. I guess it was just a nozzle knocked off the piping of the wall. It's probably in a convenient spot when you're leaving the dugout to smack it. There was no permanent damage done to the facility."
While not condoning the action, Hendry pointed out these things happen in sports.
"Honestly, major-league players that won a division and lost, the way we played and three-and-out, I certainly would have been disappointed in some people if they weren't angry, angry at themselves or angry at the results," he said. "The flip side of that would have been that somebody would have written, if nothing happened and somebody would have smiled at somebody on the way out, then they would have been portrayed that they didn't care enough."
Hendry said he had no idea who broke the pipe and nor did he have any interest in finding out.
"Believe me, if I had been in uniform, it might have been me," he said with a laugh.
Marmol OK: Jim Hendry said farm director Oneri Fleita spoke with reliever Carlos Marmol on Wednesday and that Marmol is fine after getting into a car accident Tuesday in the Dominican Republic.
"He just got a cut on his head, but he's fine," Hendry said. "Nothing wrong with his right arm, thankfully."
Wood and Dempster: Jim Hendry didn't directly answer when asked how the Cubs would pursue re-signing two key free agents: closer Kerry Wood and starting pitcher Ryan Dempster.
"I'll sit down with Crane (chairman Kenney) and get a handle on our payroll projections," Hendry said. "Randy (assistant GM Bush) and I and Oneri and the people who live here in Chicago, we'll have quite a bit of work to do before we get to the (organizational) meetings on the 19th. We'll start looking at a lot of these decisions that have to be made. The guys we feel we need to keep, we'll do our best to do that and then try to address avenues where we think we might need to get better."
