I figured I can post it as well. Enjoy
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Emerald-green bath towels were spread neatly across the aluminum picnic table. Casino-quality chips were piled in leaning stacks. Cards were being shuffled, and a crowd was quickly forming.
Outside of the green towels -- which did a decent job replicating the felt of a genuine poker table -- it could have been a casino.
But this was the White Sox' clubhouse before a recent game. Players were laughing and joking. A few feet away, another loud card game was going on -- a Spanish-language version without the green towels as a backdrop.
''Whether we'll win or lose, I don't know, but this team is more like the college frat group, for sure,'' first baseman Paul Konerko said. ''If you break it down and look at the personalities, everybody kind of jells. I just hope we have enough talent to win. I think we do.''
This is in stark contrast to the Sox' clubhouse in recent years -- or the insurance-office atmosphere of the Cubs' quiet clubhouse.
Sox teams had plenty of talent in recent years but clearly were missing something.
''The bonding just wasn't there,'' Konerko said. ''Now it seems like it is.''
Konerko has been through the joy ride of 2000 -- when the Sox were the model for team chemistry -- to the low point a year later, when sniping and me-first personalities were the order of the day.
So he has some perspective when he sizes up the 2005 Sox. They might not have played a regular-season game, but Konerko is noticing something special, an intangible that never shows up under transactions and can't be acquired with a fat check.
''This clubhouse is pretty together now,'' Konerko said. ''We have a lot of guys who are cut from the same fabric. This will be my seventh year, and by far, this team has the most guys who are similar to each other.''
A tighter group than the kids who relied on their magical chemistry to shock the American League Central in 2000?
''That team became that as it happened,'' Konerko said. ''There were a lot of different personalities. That team was a great team, and that's the model that you are looking for. But I don't think anybody knew that was going to happen in the spring.''
General manager Ken Williams disturbed that delicate chemistry after 2000 by trading popular pitcher Mike Sirotka for selfish veteran David Wells, whose 260-pound ego landed in the clubhouse like a dirty bomb. Moody shortstop Royce Clayton also was added to the mix.
Williams wishes he could have kept a good thing going after 2000, but he needed some help.
''That team wasn't going to win,'' Williams said. ''It was hurt. The pitching staff was broken down at the end of that year. We didn't need to make major changes. All we tried to do was add to it.''
That's the thing about chemistry -- you never can predict when the right elements are going to come together.
A start to creating a better atmosphere was hiring Ozzie Guillen as manager before last season. If you can't be loose around Guillen, someone better check your pulse.
''There is room for everything,'' Williams said. ''You don't go out and hire a guy like Ozzie if you don't understand a certain value for the fun aspect and the characters of the game.''
A potential step back was the offseason signing of bad-boy catcher A.J. Pierzynski, who still is being ripped in San Francisco for not fitting in with the Giants last season.
But there was Pierzynski, standing around the poker table, mixing well with his new teammates. When the fancy box for the chips broke, Pierzynski sat on the floor trying to fix it.
This is not the picture of a clubhouse cancer.
''Everybody on our team has done a great job of giving him the benefit of the doubt,'' Konerko said. ''I played against him, I didn't like him. You know he is going to do things or say things, and you're thinking, 'This guy, come on.' He kind of rubbed you the wrong way. It doesn't bother me if he rubs the other team the wrong way. I just don't want him to rub our teammates the wrong way.
''But I honestly don't care if he rubs the other team the wrong way. That might be what we need here.''
Konerko is not the only Sox veteran to notice a change in the clubhouse.
''Yeah, it's spring training, but guys are going out, eating dinner and having drinks together,'' said pitcher Mark Buehrle, who sat at the head of the poker table, then pitched six perfect innings. ''A lot of people say a team with good chemistry plays more like a team than a bunch of individuals. Just like playing poker in here. We were having a good time, but it's bonding, and that carries over onto the field.''
Konerko saw the same thing in 2000.
''If you can't be the Yankees or the Red Sox, that's what you're looking for,'' he said of team unity. ''I mean, if you can't go out and spend $150 million on your team, what that [2000] team had is exactly what you are looking for -- with every guy looking out for the guy next to him and just leaving his [guts] out there.''
