March 31 , 2005News
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Dear White Sox Fans,
Opening Day is just about here - finally. The last week of Spring Training is
always tough. Your emotions are mixed. Everyone is excited about getting the
season started, but at the same time you also have the final roster cuts to get
down to 25 men. Sending guys to the minors is always hard, but especially when
it comes down to the last couple of cuts each spring. Telling someone he is not
going to make the Major League club might be the hardest thing about my job.
We've had a great spring. Other than a few scares like Mark Buehrle's sore left
foot or Aaron Rowand getting hit by pitches, we have stayed healthy. In some
ways, that is always your biggest concern as a manager. You want everyone to
stay healthy during the spring.
I hope all of our fans share my excitement about this season. We can't wait to
get things started in Chicago on April 4. The approach I have been stressing to
our players and staff this year is to take each day as it comes. The temptation
is to start looking ahead at the next series, the next road trip or the next
homestand. You start trying to count up wins and losses months in advance. My
message to the team is that we need to fight that temptation and focus on the
game we are playing today.
A baseball season is so long - 162 games - that it is easy to lose your focus. I
do believe it is not the way you start a season, but the way you finish, that is
most important. The key to April is to not dig too deep a hole for your club. If
you bury yourself in April and May, it becomes that much tougher to survive the
slumps that every team faces at some point during the summer. My goal is that we
come out of April and May with a cushion that allows us to survive the
struggles, or even better, to take advantage of that hot streak in June, July
and August.
I have really enjoyed watching our team come together this spring. To a man,
every one of our new players has really fit in. I am very pleased with our
chemistry, even if you sometimes have to know four languages -English, Spanish,
Japanese and my own personal mix.
We started out Spring Training looking at a lot of young players, and several
impressed us. As our regulars began to play more and more innings, you saw us be
very aggressive on the basepaths and at the plate. You are going to see that
aggressiveness all season long. Along with my coaching staff, I wanted to see
who could handle the bat and how everyone ran the bases. The best way for us to
learn the abilities and limits of our players was to be extra aggressive on the
bases. I am willing to make overly aggressive outs in March to learn something
that might help win a game in September. From Day 1, I want this White Sox team
to feature good starting pitching, be aggressive and exciting on the basepaths
and be solid fundamentally. If we do those three things, I believe we will
consistently win games. We need our pitching to stay healthy. I really like the
balance of our offense and believe we will be much more consistent from day to
day this season. Our bullpen's depth will be a
strength on this team. Finally, I think it is important to remember how much of
a learning process the start of this season will be for Tadahito Iguchi. He has
done a terrific job this spring adjusting to major-league baseball and just to
life in America. I need to be patient with his even bigger adjustment to Major
League Baseball's regular season.
I hope this gives you a sense of what we have accomplished this spring and our
excitement about the start of the season on Monday. I know many of you will be
at the ballpark for Opening Day, and I will see others of you as the season gets
rolling.
Thanks for all the support, and let's get this season going.
Sincerely, Ozzie Guillen
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