White Sox aim to ace chemistry again

02/03/2006
CHICAGO -- The White Sox graduated 2005 as baseball's version of Summa Cum Laude, capturing their first World Series title since 1917.
But they had a special emphasis of excellence on the subject of Chemistry.
Franchise mainstays such as Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Lee had moved on or were sent elsewhere, via trade, prior to last season. Newcomers such as catcher A.J. Pierzynski, outfielders Scott Podsednik and Jermaine Dye and pitchers Dustin Hermanson and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez helped comprise the eight-player influx to a team that had fallen short of the Twins in the American League Central in each of the previous three seasons.
From the beginning, though, from as early as the first day pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training in Tucson, this group forged a special bond that only grew stronger as the season progressed, and the White Sox became more successful as a unit. These changes made going into 2005 were not shocking, overwhelming or unexpected.
As manager Ozzie Guillen said numerous times during that particular offseason, his first team in 2004 had great players, but they certainly weren't a great team. Fast forward to a sold-out SoxFest, 2006, during the last weekend in January, and general manager Ken Williams readily admitted that his 2005 team wasn't the best in baseball, player for player, but it certainly was the best from start to finish as a group.
Yet, Williams did not stand pat with the championship team he had. Nine players who contributed to last year's title run are gone entering 2006, including key everyday contributors such as Aaron Rowand and Carl Everett. Frank Thomas, the face of the franchise for the past 16 years, will be serving as the Oakland designated hitter, if healthy.
One school of thought is that if a situation is not broken, then don't try to fix it. Williams' idea was that for his team to finish at the head of the baseball class once again, he had to make improvements.
Of course, it's not exactly like Williams added anything remotely close to negative clubhouse forces in Jim Thome, Rob Mackowiak or Javier Vazquez.
"Even if we came back with every guy that was on that [2005] team, it still would be a new team," said White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko, the formerly unofficial and now official captain of this squad. "Every year there are things that come about, new situations, and you have to always constantly be working on the chemistry part of it from Day 1. That means starting in Spring Training, not just the season.
"You just have to get it going and work on chemistry like you work on anything. We have a good group of guys here, but it takes forever to get it like last year's team. Last year's team was just great. In a matter of a week, it can come crashing down. We just have to be careful that we don't think last year's chemistry magically carries over."
Konerko compared the chemistry issue within a team to an individual working hard to get into shape. You can do all the right things nine days out of 10, but that one day you slip from your diet and workout program can screw up the whole plan. One problem among teammates, if not handled correctly, could cause players on the team to take sides and split up a unified clubhouse.
In all honesty, the White Sox don't seem like a team headed in that direction. Not with Guillen and his staff at the helm. Not with high-character, driven players such as Konerko, Thome, Joe Crede and Mark Buehrle, to name a very few, leading the way.
"If you have enough guys in the clubhouse all the time where people don't want to get out of line and act or play the wrong way, then people fall in line the right way," Konerko said. "That's the plan, along with some talent."
"This is the 11th year I've been playing professionally, and I've never been in one clubhouse that has stayed the same from year to year," Crede added. "Circumstances always change, just like the opponents change, too. It's an exciting new challenge for us, but we also brought in a lot of good guys."
Crede, Pierzynski and Rowand formed a little 2005 sub-group dubbed "The Three Stooges" by hitting coach Greg Walker. It was this trio's evening out together at a bar in Baltimore that eventually led to Steve Perry once again becoming a household word in Chicago and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" becoming the White Sox de facto playoff anthem.
This team's togetherness fostered an "us-against-the-world" mentality, a collective chip on their shoulder for the non-believers who thought the White Sox weren't good enough to become a champion. So, where will that chip come from in 2006, with the South Siders being chased by everyone else, instead of doing the chasing?
Simply put, it comes from the basic desire to repeat. It's the same desire that led Williams to make changes to a team winning 16 of its final 17 games in 2005. This is a group with a goal of not just making baseball's honor roll for one season but for three or four more seasons to come.
"Ordinarily you would say that we have to find some kind of rallying cry to come up with so that we have that same edge, but no one believed in these guys anyway," Williams said. "They win the World Series and the next day, the next day after they win the World Series, the Cleveland Indians were being picked to win the division the next year. So I don't know if they ever got to the point to where they could take this season for granted. Everything we did this offseason was with the mindset that we hadn't done anything."
"If you look hard enough, you can find that chip anywhere," Konerko added. "I've heard guys on other teams say that we got hot and we won't do it again. You have to pick out something personally or as a team, but you also need the guys to run the race."

Source: http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/