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In the year 2008 ... (cont.)

Posted: Friday March 28, 2008 4:42PM; Updated: Monday March 31, 2008 11:06AM
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Final spring training notes

• One of my more enjoyable sit-downs of the spring was with White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who could have a tough year ahead. After losing 90 games last year, he's ready for anything. "I want to have a career as a manager like Bobby Cox. I want to have a career managing like Tony La Russa. Mr. Joe Torre. Lou Piniella. That's my goal," Ozzie told me. "But it's not a good job. I told Cal Ripken, 'Look at me. Don't manage.' Everybody wants to manage, until they start managing."

Trey Hillman, the new manager of the Royals, knows what he's doing. He instituted a bunch of changes in spring training this year, and he maybe rubbed some people the wrong way -- I'll have more on Hillman and the Royals next week -- but with that team's recent history, a little shakeup is probably in order. "As an organization, we've had 14 of the last 15 years losing seasons," Hillman said one recent morning in Surprise, Ariz. "So if I perceive, or anyone in the clubhouse perceives, that we don't have room for improvement, that's a problem."

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• The Dodgers made official on Thursday their move to Glendale, Ariz., next spring, saying in a press release that the White Sox (who now train in Tucson) will join them there. Not sure that's going to happen that simply -- the Sox, contractually, have to find a replacement before moving out of Tucson Electric Park, and that's not going to be easy to find -- but everything's moving that way. Meaning West, of course. The Indians, and maybe the Reds, are picking up their Florida stakes for a move to the Phoenix area, too.

• Most bizarre moment of the spring: While I was talking with Jered Weaver in the Angels' clubhouse in Tempe, Ariz. -- Weaver, by the way, finally was named the team's Opening Day starter -- a skirmish broke out between relievers Darren Oliver and Justin Speier, an apparent practical joke gone bad. No punches were thrown. It was mainly chest-bumping and a little shoving. But the little tiff shows what can happen when a bunch of grown men are cooped up together too long. It was pretty funny, truth be told.

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