Sox on the same page

Subject: Sox on the same page Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:30 pm

How the final chapter ends for the $130 million novel that is White Sox Baseball 2011 is anyone’s guess.

There will be ups and downs, there will be drama, and throw in a couple of tweets now and then to make it interesting . . .

The prologue, however, was written last week on the baseball fields of
Florida International University in Miami. No media, no opposing team on
the field, no nonsense. Just eight players getting together on their
own dime at “Camp Cora’’ to write that first page.

More important, to make sure they were all on Page 1 at the same time.

“I got the sense that they are excited about the possibilities of this
year,’’ bench coach Joey Cora said in a phone interview. “They really
have the team to compete and be good. It wasn’t about, ‘Oh, we spent so
much money,’ or ‘What about [manager Ozzie Guillen’s expiring]
contract?’ It was about concentrating on baseball and what has to be
done. That’s what was talked about. They feel like they have the weapons
to compete, the ammunition to go to battle with the rest of the
division. Nothing else matters to these guys right now except baseball.

“It was about no distractions.’’

Music to the ears of everyone associated with the Sox.

The Sox are the only organization in sports that works on dysfunction
drills somewhere between pitchers’ fielding practice and shagging balls
when spring training starts.

They can’t help it — it’s their DNA.

But all of a sudden, ’11 seems different. “Camp Cora’’ is the first indication of that.

In 2008, Cora decided to take Alexei Ramirez under his wing and work on
the young Cuban’s defense to make it major-league ready. Then third
baseman-in-waiting Josh Fields heard about what was happening in Miami
and signed up to meet with Cora.

Four camps later, it was the usual infielders attending to work on their
defense — Ramirez, Gordon Beckham, Brent Morel and Dayan Viciedo. But
also paying their own way to get early work in were catchers A.J.
Pierzynski and Ramon Castro, as well as outfielders Juan Pierre and Alex
Rios. Heck, pitcher Chris Sale even wanted to make a trip in, but the
weather wasn’t conducive for the young lefty to start chucking off the
mound.

“You get all those guys together — eight out of 25 [on the roster] . . . I was surprised, but in a good way,’’ Cora said.

It wasn’t the only time he was surprised throughout the week.

Cora was surprised that Beckham, Pierre and Ramirez showed up in such
good shape. He was surprised to see how Pierre was helping Beckham with
base-running tips. He was surprised how well Beckham, Morel and “The
Missile’’ looked defensively.

“They did some [bleep] here in camp that if they do that in the regular
season, they’ll be in highlights all over the country on a nightly
basis,’’ Cora said. “Morel, he gets it, he’s ready. Defensively, he’s a
natural. It doesn’t seem like he’s forced in anything he does. I don’t
want to compare him to [former Sox third baseman Joe] Crede. I mean,
Crede won a World Series for us. I wouldn’t do that to him. But he’s
just very fluid. It’s nice to work with a guy like that.

“As far as ‘The Missile,’ he looked like he just played yesterday, didn’t miss a beat from the season.’’

There’s no doubt this is a crossroads season for the franchise. Guillen,
general manager Ken Williams and the coaching staff are all under
scrutiny. Patience on the South Side is as thinly stretched as the
payroll.

The only remedy? Winning, and winning early.

You don’t spend all that money on a starting staff, re-sign Paul Konerko
and Pierzynski and then mix in free agents such as Adam Dunn and Jesse
Crain only to watch the Twins take champagne showers again in October.

“The week ended with the sense that everyone wants spring training to start tomorrow,’’ Cora said.

Maybe the most important Page 1 written since 2005.