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VIERA, Fla. (AP) -- Rafael Furcal had hoped to make his spring training debut Sunday. Instead, the 35-year-old shortstop was told to stop baseball activities.

Trying to come back from a torn ligament in his right elbow, the three-time All-Star has been told he must have additional medical tests.

"He's just not feeling good, kind of went in a bad direction," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said Sunday. "We don't know the severity of it, but it wasn't good news."

With Furcal out indefinitely, Pete Kozma and Ronny Cedeno are the likely candidates to take over at shortstop unless there is a trade.

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VIERA, Fla. (AP) - St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny has a ruptured disk in his back.

Matheny, a major league catcher from 1994-06, is scheduled to have an epidural injection Monday to reduce inflammation and get a particle off a nerve. If the injection doesn't help alleviate pain, he said surgery would "have to be something we would consider."

Starting his second season as the Cardinals' manager, Matheny has had back issues for several years.

"I've had problems for a long time, off and on," he said Sunday. "I've been on a program to kind of strengthen it, but ... something set it off in a bad direction. I don't know exactly what it was.

Matheny did not travel with the team to Kissimmee on Friday, citing back pain and food poisoning. He returned to manage the Cardinals on Saturday in Jupiter.

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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) -- A central California retirement home is defending one of its nurses who refused pleas by a 911 operator to perform CPR on an elderly woman, who later died.

"Is there anybody that's willing to help this lady and not let her die," dispatcher Tracey Halvorson says on a 911 tape released by the Bakersfield Fire Department aired by several media outlets on Sunday.

"Not at this time," said the nurse, who didn't give her full name and said facility policy prevented her from giving the woman medical help.

At the beginning of the Tuesday morning call, the nurse asked for paramedics to come and help the woman who had collapsed in the home's dining room and was barely breathing.

Halvorson pleads for the nurse to perform CPR, and after several refusals she starts pleading for her to find a resident, or a gardener, or anyone not employed by the home to get on the phone, take her instructions and help the woman.

"Can we flag someone down in the street and get them to help this lady?" Halvorson says on the call. "Can we flag a stranger down? I bet a stranger would help her."

The 87-year-old was later declared dead at Mercy Southwest Hospital, officials said.

The executive director of Glenwood Gardens, Jeffrey Toomer, defended the nurse's actions in a statement, saying she did indeed follow policy.

"In the event of a health emergency at this independent living community our practice is to immediately call emergency medical personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives," Toomer said in a written statement. "That is the protocol we followed."

Toomer offered condolences to the woman's family and said a "thorough internal review" of the incident would be conducted.

He told KGET-TV that residents of the home's independent living community are informed of the policy and agree to it when they move in. He said the policy does not apply at the adjacent assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.

A call to the facility by The Associated Press seeking more information on the incident was not immediately returned.

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