dirty
EOG Master
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD noWrap>March 28, 2006
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Scott your opinion!
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- T9343857 --><!-- Sesame Modified: 03/29/2006 09:31:31 --><!-- sversion: 10 $Updated: lylec$ -->Miller: Five things to know
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Site: Houston, just outside of Minute Maid Park. The night the Chicago White Sox won their first World Series title in 88 years.
The champagne was dry. The bus back to the hotel was warming. Yet the wheels were turning.
<TABLE width="45%" align=left><TBODY><TR><TD><OBJECT id=VHSS codeBase=http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0 height=173 width=230 classid=clsid
27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000>
<EMBED src="http://vhost.oddcast.com/vhsssecure.php?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fvhost.oddcast.com%2Fgetshow.php%3Facc%3D18512%26ss%3D288310%26sl%3D608185%26embedid%3D78779a6dedd30ba107945b27ab706bf2&edit=0&acc=18512&loading=1&bgcolor=0xFFFFFF&firstslide=1" swLiveConnect=true NAME="VHSS" quality=high scale=noborder bgcolor=#FFFFFF WIDTH=230 HEIGHT=173 TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></EMBED></OBJECT>Why does a call from White Sox trainer Herm Schneider cause his GM to panic? Click play for Scott Miller's explanation.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>General manager Kenny Williams leaned over to where manager Ozzie Guillen and the coaching staff were sitting.
"I want your recommendations for what we should do this offseason," Williams told them. "Based on the feeling that we just lost the World Series, not that we just won it."
"We didn't even make it back to the hotel before we were talking about the '06 club," Guillen says. "We're not going to sit there and say how great we are."
You would expect little else from a grinder team from the middle part of the country. The '05 White Sox were not glitz and frosting and sound bites. Well, check that last part. We'll grant you, Guillen is one walking sound bite.
Mostly, though, the Sox were about mixing infield dirt with sweat, grass stains with concentration, old-school baseball with a single-mindedness that hadn't been seen on the South Side since ... forever? It sure seemed that way.
Their championship represented many things to many people. Most of those people, of course, were in Chicago and had the generational stories to prove it.
"I can't tell you how many people came up and said how much they appreciated what we did, what it meant to their fathers," says hitting coach Greg Walker, one of six former White Sox players on Guillen's staff. "People talked about how the first game they ever went to was with their father, or of how they took flowers to the cemetery and talked to their fathers about our win.
"It really meant a lot to people, and that's a good feeling."
The White Sox also filled another void. Not since the 1991 Minnesota Twins had a team from the Midwest won a World Series. As the game's economics created power centers on the coasts, an entire section of the country was left behind. Children in places like Illinois, Iowa and Michigan were born, and some went on to have 14 birthdays before realizing that a World Series trophy actually could be earned by a team in or close to the Central time zone.
Not that fans in places such as Detroit, Minnesota and St. Louis took particular pride in the White Sox's victory, but it's difficult not to look at a White Sox club that hadn't won a World Series since 1917 and think, If they can do it ...
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=175 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD width=175>
</TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR><TR><TD width=175>Newly acquired Javier Vazquez should bolster an already impressive pitching staff. (AP) </TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>"These guys set the bar high," new White Sox designated hitter and Peoria, Ill., native Jim Thome says. "It was fun to watch. It goes to show you that you can compete. I just want to do it again. I hope we can do it again.
"It was tremendous for this area. I rooted for them because I'm from the area. It brought a lot of excitement to the Midwest."
Williams and Guillen were touched by the championship parade through Chicago more than they could ever put into words. Williams vividly recalls the chill that swept over him when he walked to the front of his box just before Game 1 of the World Series and felt the swell of the crowd.
"It was like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders," Williams says.
Well, guess what? Here's one thing you discover when you win a World Series: It sure doesn't take long for the pressure to build again.
"It's back," Williams says of that weight. "It's a shame it's back. But I guess you find out a lot about yourself when you win."
No small part of a GM's job is anticipation, to think several months ahead of everybody else. Thus, the bus conversation with Guillen and the coaches on the ride back to the team hotel the night of the win in Houston. There was no blueprint from that point to this. So Williams, in knowing he needed to look ahead, started by looking to his past.
"I have to be mindful of some lessons I've learned from guys like John Schuerholz, Pat Gillick and Bill Lajoie," Williams says, referring to the legendary Atlanta and Philadelphia general managers and the longtime GM currently advising the Los Angeles Dodgers. "Guys I've been around and respect. Guys I've watched how they continue to build good clubs after they've won."
Site: Scottsdale Stadium, late March. A week before the White Sox will open defense of that first World Series title in 88 years. Guillen is revisiting that bus conversation, the beginning of the cool and calculated effort to lay out the ground work for '06 before the historic championship night was even finished.
"People don't believe that," Guillen says. "People thought that I would get drunk and get naked on the street with a big White Sox sign on my chest.
"No. We started thinking about next year."
The end result is, the '06 White Sox are stronger -- on paper, at least -- than last year's World Series winners. Thome, who so far is healthy, adds a DH dimension that last year's club didn't have. And Javier Vazquez, acquired from Arizona, begins the season as the fifth starter.
<TABLE cellPadding=8 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD><STYLE> .pollQuestion{ font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #FFFFFF; font-weight: bold; font-size: 12px; } .pollResponce{ font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 11px; } .pollTotal{ font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 10px; } .pollPercent{ font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #FFFFFF; font-weight: bold; font-size: 14px; } </STYLE><SCRIPT language=javascript1.2> var pollValue; function submitPoll(){ if( pollValue ){ document.getElementById('pollForm').submit(); }else{ alert('You forgot to vote...'); } } function selectPoll( value ){ pollValue = value; } </SCRIPT><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=230 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD align=middle background=http://images.sportsline.com/images/polls/poll_header_bg.gif>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=pollTable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=10 width=230 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left>Which team has the best rotation in baseball?
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><FORM id=pollForm name=pollForm action=http://poll.sportsline.com/u/polls/poll.cgi method=post><INPUT type=hidden value=Rotation06 name=pollname><INPUT type=hidden value=.sportsline.com name=domain> <TBODY><TR height=24><TD class=pollRadioButtonCell><INPUT id=pollResponce_1 onclick=javascript:selectPoll(this.value); type=radio value="Astros " name=answer></TD><TD class=pollResponce><LABEL for=pollResponce_1>Astros </LABEL></TD></TR><TR height=24><TD class=pollRadioButtonCell><INPUT id=pollResponce_2 onclick=javascript:selectPoll(this.value); type=radio value=Athletics name=answer></TD><TD class=pollResponce><LABEL for=pollResponce_2>Athletics</LABEL></TD></TR><TR height=24><TD class=pollRadioButtonCell><INPUT id=pollResponce_3 onclick=javascript:selectPoll(this.value); type=radio value=Cardinals name=answer></TD><TD class=pollResponce><LABEL for=pollResponce_3>Cardinals</LABEL></TD></TR><TR height=24><TD class=pollRadioButtonCell><INPUT id=pollResponce_4 onclick=javascript:selectPoll(this.value); type=radio value="White Sox " name=answer></TD><TD class=pollResponce><LABEL for=pollResponce_4>White Sox </LABEL></TD></TR></FORM></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Every position player but center fielder Aaron Rowand is back, including the re-signing of free agent first baseman Paul Konerko. Four-fifths of last year's rotation and closer Bobby Jenks return, too.
Personnel-wise, the White Sox had a remarkable winter.
"I think we're stronger," opening day starter Mark Buehrle says. "You look at our lineup last year at this time and I wouldn't have said we were going to the World Series. I think on paper, Vazquez, I guess he'll be our No. 5, he'd be the opening day starter for somebody else. And Jim Thome, if he's right, he can hit 50 bombs.
"How can we not be better?"
Yes, in an era in which nutritional supplements are all the rage, the Sox took a very powerful lineup and added a few supplements of their own. Don't overlook the additions of a couple of utility men to the overall picture, either -- infielder Alex Cintron and outfielder Rob Mackowiak.
"We started talking about Jim Thome (internally) when Ryan Howard came up last season," Williams says. "And Vazquez, I was after him when we got Bartolo Colon (before the 2003 season). Vazquez was our target, and we fell back on Bartolo."
None of this is to say, however, that it will be a cakewalk to another division title. Cleveland and Minnesota remain strong. Detroit, if healthy, should be competitive.
As the White Sox know all too well, the best-laid plans rarely come off as planned. They've seen it first hand. Who would have predicted that it would be them who would win the '05 World Series? Who could have foreseen Boston racing back from a three-game deficit in the 2004 ALCS to run the table against the Yankees and then sweep St. Louis in the World Series? And how about Florida winning it all in '03?
"The only thing I know is when you think you've got this game figured out, that's when it will jump up and bite you in the butt," Williams says. "Each year since '01, we felt good about what we were able to do on paper. You have to play it out on the field.
"Chemistry, how it will all play out, I don't know. I ain't that smart."
Site: Williams' home, early January. He battled kidney stones that wouldn't come out for much of the winter while he was building this year's roster. On Jan. 3, the day after his final kidney-stone surgery, while resting at home, he popped in --for the first time -- the DVD of the White Sox's magical run.
"I wouldn't allow myself to look at the DVD of the World Series until I got our '06 team together," Williams says. "I didn't want to get caught up in the sentimentality of it."
When he finally did, he was knocked out by the drama of it all.
"When you're there, your focus is on every pitch, on every at-bat," Williams says. "To see it reproduced, to see what the fans saw, wow."
He watched it all, enthralled.
And when he was finished, do you know what his wife, Jessica, told him?
That he sat there with a little smile on his face for the entire length of the video.
[/FONT]</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Scott your opinion!
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- T9343857 --><!-- Sesame Modified: 03/29/2006 09:31:31 --><!-- sversion: 10 $Updated: lylec$ -->Miller: Five things to know
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Site: Houston, just outside of Minute Maid Park. The night the Chicago White Sox won their first World Series title in 88 years.
The champagne was dry. The bus back to the hotel was warming. Yet the wheels were turning.
<TABLE width="45%" align=left><TBODY><TR><TD><OBJECT id=VHSS codeBase=http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0 height=173 width=230 classid=clsid
27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000><EMBED src="http://vhost.oddcast.com/vhsssecure.php?doc=http%3A%2F%2Fvhost.oddcast.com%2Fgetshow.php%3Facc%3D18512%26ss%3D288310%26sl%3D608185%26embedid%3D78779a6dedd30ba107945b27ab706bf2&edit=0&acc=18512&loading=1&bgcolor=0xFFFFFF&firstslide=1" swLiveConnect=true NAME="VHSS" quality=high scale=noborder bgcolor=#FFFFFF WIDTH=230 HEIGHT=173 TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></EMBED></OBJECT>Why does a call from White Sox trainer Herm Schneider cause his GM to panic? Click play for Scott Miller's explanation.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>General manager Kenny Williams leaned over to where manager Ozzie Guillen and the coaching staff were sitting.
"I want your recommendations for what we should do this offseason," Williams told them. "Based on the feeling that we just lost the World Series, not that we just won it."
"We didn't even make it back to the hotel before we were talking about the '06 club," Guillen says. "We're not going to sit there and say how great we are."
You would expect little else from a grinder team from the middle part of the country. The '05 White Sox were not glitz and frosting and sound bites. Well, check that last part. We'll grant you, Guillen is one walking sound bite.
Mostly, though, the Sox were about mixing infield dirt with sweat, grass stains with concentration, old-school baseball with a single-mindedness that hadn't been seen on the South Side since ... forever? It sure seemed that way.
Their championship represented many things to many people. Most of those people, of course, were in Chicago and had the generational stories to prove it.
"I can't tell you how many people came up and said how much they appreciated what we did, what it meant to their fathers," says hitting coach Greg Walker, one of six former White Sox players on Guillen's staff. "People talked about how the first game they ever went to was with their father, or of how they took flowers to the cemetery and talked to their fathers about our win.
"It really meant a lot to people, and that's a good feeling."
The White Sox also filled another void. Not since the 1991 Minnesota Twins had a team from the Midwest won a World Series. As the game's economics created power centers on the coasts, an entire section of the country was left behind. Children in places like Illinois, Iowa and Michigan were born, and some went on to have 14 birthdays before realizing that a World Series trophy actually could be earned by a team in or close to the Central time zone.
Not that fans in places such as Detroit, Minnesota and St. Louis took particular pride in the White Sox's victory, but it's difficult not to look at a White Sox club that hadn't won a World Series since 1917 and think, If they can do it ...
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=175 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD width=175>
</TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR><TR><TD width=175>Newly acquired Javier Vazquez should bolster an already impressive pitching staff. (AP) </TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>"These guys set the bar high," new White Sox designated hitter and Peoria, Ill., native Jim Thome says. "It was fun to watch. It goes to show you that you can compete. I just want to do it again. I hope we can do it again. "It was tremendous for this area. I rooted for them because I'm from the area. It brought a lot of excitement to the Midwest."
Williams and Guillen were touched by the championship parade through Chicago more than they could ever put into words. Williams vividly recalls the chill that swept over him when he walked to the front of his box just before Game 1 of the World Series and felt the swell of the crowd.
"It was like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders," Williams says.
Well, guess what? Here's one thing you discover when you win a World Series: It sure doesn't take long for the pressure to build again.
"It's back," Williams says of that weight. "It's a shame it's back. But I guess you find out a lot about yourself when you win."
No small part of a GM's job is anticipation, to think several months ahead of everybody else. Thus, the bus conversation with Guillen and the coaches on the ride back to the team hotel the night of the win in Houston. There was no blueprint from that point to this. So Williams, in knowing he needed to look ahead, started by looking to his past.
"I have to be mindful of some lessons I've learned from guys like John Schuerholz, Pat Gillick and Bill Lajoie," Williams says, referring to the legendary Atlanta and Philadelphia general managers and the longtime GM currently advising the Los Angeles Dodgers. "Guys I've been around and respect. Guys I've watched how they continue to build good clubs after they've won."
Site: Scottsdale Stadium, late March. A week before the White Sox will open defense of that first World Series title in 88 years. Guillen is revisiting that bus conversation, the beginning of the cool and calculated effort to lay out the ground work for '06 before the historic championship night was even finished.
"People don't believe that," Guillen says. "People thought that I would get drunk and get naked on the street with a big White Sox sign on my chest.
"No. We started thinking about next year."
The end result is, the '06 White Sox are stronger -- on paper, at least -- than last year's World Series winners. Thome, who so far is healthy, adds a DH dimension that last year's club didn't have. And Javier Vazquez, acquired from Arizona, begins the season as the fifth starter.
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=pollTable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=10 width=230 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left>Which team has the best rotation in baseball?<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><FORM id=pollForm name=pollForm action=http://poll.sportsline.com/u/polls/poll.cgi method=post><INPUT type=hidden value=Rotation06 name=pollname><INPUT type=hidden value=.sportsline.com name=domain> <TBODY><TR height=24><TD class=pollRadioButtonCell><INPUT id=pollResponce_1 onclick=javascript:selectPoll(this.value); type=radio value="Astros " name=answer></TD><TD class=pollResponce><LABEL for=pollResponce_1>Astros </LABEL></TD></TR><TR height=24><TD class=pollRadioButtonCell><INPUT id=pollResponce_2 onclick=javascript:selectPoll(this.value); type=radio value=Athletics name=answer></TD><TD class=pollResponce><LABEL for=pollResponce_2>Athletics</LABEL></TD></TR><TR height=24><TD class=pollRadioButtonCell><INPUT id=pollResponce_3 onclick=javascript:selectPoll(this.value); type=radio value=Cardinals name=answer></TD><TD class=pollResponce><LABEL for=pollResponce_3>Cardinals</LABEL></TD></TR><TR height=24><TD class=pollRadioButtonCell><INPUT id=pollResponce_4 onclick=javascript:selectPoll(this.value); type=radio value="White Sox " name=answer></TD><TD class=pollResponce><LABEL for=pollResponce_4>White Sox </LABEL></TD></TR></FORM></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Every position player but center fielder Aaron Rowand is back, including the re-signing of free agent first baseman Paul Konerko. Four-fifths of last year's rotation and closer Bobby Jenks return, too.
Personnel-wise, the White Sox had a remarkable winter.
"I think we're stronger," opening day starter Mark Buehrle says. "You look at our lineup last year at this time and I wouldn't have said we were going to the World Series. I think on paper, Vazquez, I guess he'll be our No. 5, he'd be the opening day starter for somebody else. And Jim Thome, if he's right, he can hit 50 bombs.
"How can we not be better?"
Yes, in an era in which nutritional supplements are all the rage, the Sox took a very powerful lineup and added a few supplements of their own. Don't overlook the additions of a couple of utility men to the overall picture, either -- infielder Alex Cintron and outfielder Rob Mackowiak.
"We started talking about Jim Thome (internally) when Ryan Howard came up last season," Williams says. "And Vazquez, I was after him when we got Bartolo Colon (before the 2003 season). Vazquez was our target, and we fell back on Bartolo."
None of this is to say, however, that it will be a cakewalk to another division title. Cleveland and Minnesota remain strong. Detroit, if healthy, should be competitive.
As the White Sox know all too well, the best-laid plans rarely come off as planned. They've seen it first hand. Who would have predicted that it would be them who would win the '05 World Series? Who could have foreseen Boston racing back from a three-game deficit in the 2004 ALCS to run the table against the Yankees and then sweep St. Louis in the World Series? And how about Florida winning it all in '03?
"The only thing I know is when you think you've got this game figured out, that's when it will jump up and bite you in the butt," Williams says. "Each year since '01, we felt good about what we were able to do on paper. You have to play it out on the field.
"Chemistry, how it will all play out, I don't know. I ain't that smart."
Site: Williams' home, early January. He battled kidney stones that wouldn't come out for much of the winter while he was building this year's roster. On Jan. 3, the day after his final kidney-stone surgery, while resting at home, he popped in --for the first time -- the DVD of the White Sox's magical run.
"I wouldn't allow myself to look at the DVD of the World Series until I got our '06 team together," Williams says. "I didn't want to get caught up in the sentimentality of it."
When he finally did, he was knocked out by the drama of it all.
"When you're there, your focus is on every pitch, on every at-bat," Williams says. "To see it reproduced, to see what the fans saw, wow."
He watched it all, enthralled.
And when he was finished, do you know what his wife, Jessica, told him?
That he sat there with a little smile on his face for the entire length of the video.
[/FONT]</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>