GM still wants Ozzie to be Ozzie, and he has no doubts he will be
Kenny Williams is pretty relaxed this time of year.
Well, as relaxed as the White Sox GM allows himself to be, but you can tell he's not in midseason form.
Asked recently about whether he hopes his manager will give him a bit of a break in 2009, a respite from the usual Ozzie Guillen histrionics, Williams said, "As you say that, I can't really remember a lot from last year.''
The winter will do that to a GM, but after being reminded, and thinking specifically of the times Guillen dragged Williams or the coaches into one controversy or another, Williams admitted, "It's true that I prefer to operate in the background of all this.
"I don't need to have my name in the paper or my face on TV. Maybe once a year would be good to accept the (World Series) trophy, but the rest I can do without it.''
Williams has said a couple of times in the last couple of years that, "Ozzie needs to keep this stuff off my desk.''
But it's inevitable.
"So much of it is just the result of hiring some personalities, and we encourage those personalities to be themselves,'' Williams said. "I want Ozzie to be Ozzie, and we've seen in the past that we need Ozzie to be himself or it doesn't work the way he wants it to work.
"Besides, I'm not afraid of a good fight, and when they happen, twice a year or whatever it is, we deal with it and then we go out and have a beer and get over it.''
But would you like it to be just a little less stressful sometimes?
"Wait, wait, wait. You think Ozzie's going to change?'' Williams roared with laughter. "You think he's going to mellow? I mean, seriously. He ain't gonna change.
"Look, it'll happen and we'll handle it. I'll address it and we'll move on. I won't know when it's coming. At least it keeps me from being bored.
"But like I said, I really have to strain to remember the stuff from '08. I know there was some crazy stuff, but I don't really remember what.''
Lucky for Williams, a refresher course is on the way, because as sure as the high sky will rise in Arizona, it won't be long before he gets a dose of Ozzie Guillen, version 2009.
"Yeah, that's probably true,'' Williams chuckled. "Might be nice if I got a little advance warning next time, but I won't hold my breath.''
The list
E-mailer Sanjay H., my favorite GM not working in baseball today, with these nuggets from Baseball America's list of the top prospects:
• The White Sox have four players in the top 100 with Gordon Beckham (20), Dayan Viciedo (61), Aaron Poreda (63) and Tyler Flowers (99).
• The Cubs have two in the top 100: Josh Vitters (51) and Jeff Samardzija (79).
• Only four teams don't have a single prospect in the top 50, including the Cubs, Astros, Angels and Mariners.
• Only the Giants and Rangers have four or more in the top 50, and the teams with five or more in the top 100 are the Athletics, Rays, Braves, Marlins and Rangers.
• The Padres, who still need to trade Jake Peavy, are one of four teams with only one prospect in the top 100. The others are the Astros, Nats and Tigers.
Seam stress
So while the Marlins are loaded, the Tigers are empty.
That's the same Detroit team that supposedly stole the AL Central a year ago with a trade that sent six prospects to Florida for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis and at the same time brought Kenny Williams a serious helping of criticism that turned out to be unwarranted.
One of the six, by the way, is outfielder Cameron Maybin, ranked No. 8 on the top 100 prospect list.
Swing away
At his news conference Tuesday, in advance of his first round of match play, Tiger Woods said too much has been made of a supposed swing change, when in reality it's more of a knee change.
"In the past I would try to hit into my left side, but the more I did it, the more it would move,'' Woods said of having little or no ACL in his left knee. "One of the reasons you would see me jumping off the ball was to try to get off that leg.
"It's nice to be able to hit into it for the first time in a long time.''
As for whether his swing has changed, Woods said, "I've been doing the things I always do, but now I have a leg to hit against.''
Ivan Boldirev-ing
From e-mailer West Side Strangler: "Your point that fans are supposed to be emotional when it comes to trades, but management should not be, did not go far enough. You pulled your punch.
"For too long (the Blackhawks) made decisions about players based on emotion. That hurt the team. I'm expecting the 'new Hawks' to operate professionally.
"Furthermore, (Nikolai) Khabibulin should have been traded the same moment they signed (Cristobal) Huet (last summer). That was negligence, and also very strange.''
Set the Betamax
Tiger Woods tees off at 1 p.m. (Chicago time) Wednesday, and his match vs. Brendan Jones will be shown live on the Golf Channel.
Best headline
Deadspin.com: "Wide receiver Michael Crabtree has stress fracture in foot, will be out 6-10 weeks, is still better than all Chicago Bears WRs combined."
And finally-
Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel: "The economy is in shambles, the state government is broke, the stock market's down, and unemployment is up. I blame it on A-Rod's cousin."
brozner@dailyherald.com