Haugh-Ball!

After a brief hiatus to clean up the 'Great Bronson Flood' of 2010, we're back. So far in the flood, the town has lost the barber shop, Chubby's Diner (which has a great fish sandwich), and the town's only mailbox. Chaos ensued as Charlie skinny dipped in the flooded street in full view of the adjacent pre-school. But enough about that, we're here to meta-criticize the media. Take us away David Haugh:

Sox's Williams weighs pros, cons of tinkering with 1st-place club

Pros include: getting better
Cons include: crazed science experiments involving something called team-chemistry...I'm not familiar.

When Ken Williams talks about the status quo like it is a bigger enemy than the Tigers or Twins, it is what you admire most about the football coach trapped inside a baseball executive's body.

How come every time some baseball player/manager/gm shows a desire to win they compare the guy to a football player (Erstad). Do high school cheerleading coaches not want to win? I say we start going with that one.

He oversees one of baseball's most overachieving teams, one that only Hawk Harrelson and the Guillen family thought would be in first place this late in July.

Both are, of course, completely insane.

Instinctively, Williams wants more. He wants the left-handed bat, the fifth starting pitcher, the bullpen lefty and Albert Pujols too, if that's not too much to ask. The compulsive competitor in Williams wants it all mostly because he can't possibly have it.

How do you prove that last statement? I thought he wanted it because he wanted to win like football coaches do.

"When we won the World Series (in 2005), I was on the bus thinking what we could have done to make this easier,'' Williams recalled Monday at U.S. Cellular Field.

Nerd. Take that kettle!

This is the trademark intensity many Sox fans love most about Williams. Five days before the non-waiver trading deadline, it also should be what scares them out of their black pinstriped slippers.Williams was asked if the Sox team that beat the Mariners 6-1 Monday night is good enough, as is, to accomplish all the things he wants to accomplish this season. He hesitated, supplying the kind of dramatic pause producers of MLB's "The Club'' surely have come to appreciate."I don't know,'' Williams answered.

Honest at least.

The confident answer the 25 players in the clubhouse wanted to hear was yes. The answer Ozzie Guillen has maintained is yes.

Semantically I'll argue that it is the Manager's job to lie to the players and tell them they're better than they are. The GM's job is mostly dealing with media and fans where it does pay to be a little more honest.

The man spending the week with his ear pressed to the phone listening to trade proposals, given a chance to cast a vote of confidence, abstained. Uh-oh. Somewhere, Daniel Hudson's heart just skipped a beat.

He should get that looked at. Tachycardia is a serious issue.

"You've got to be cognizant of making a move that's a little too shortsighted and jeopardizing your future (and) I certainly don't want to do that,'' Williams said. "However … you guys know me, I can't B.S. you. If there's something to do in a major way that doesn't disrupt what we have, and adds to what do have, I'll take that shot.

Sounds prudent.

'If Williams' aim is for his team to win the American League Central, he may want to think twice about pulling that trigger.For about 30 minutes before Monday night's game, Williams leaned patiently against a dugout railing as Guillen spoke within earshot about 15 feet away. He really should have been listening to Sox captain Paul Konerko.Inside the Sox's clubhouse before either Williams or Guillen addressed baseball's Hallmark holiday — the manufactured, overhyped July 31 trade deadline — Konerko spoke in a volume much lower than his bosses. But with words that should carry the most weight in this potentially pivotal week."The character of this team and the makeup is why we're probably competing at all,'' Konerko said. "That's a fragile thing and you have to watch that … but who knows, you could add somebody in a move that actually enhances that.''
Sure, Adam Dunn may fit in as well as Jake Peavy did even if Dunn would grudgingly have to accept a DH role. Prince Fielder may have no effect on the Sox chemistry despite giving Konerko the occasional day off at first base he doesn't need and Guillen a lineup conundrum he doesn't want.

So Guillen doesn't want Fielder because...it would give the 34-year-old Paul Konerko some days off. And Guillen would have to learn how to spell 'Fielder' for the lineup card.

But adding either player guarantees the Sox nothing but change.

That is just a stupidly obvious statement. Really really stupid.

And change makes a first-place team as uncomfortable as Konerko seemed discussing that possibility.

Why? Why would it make them uncomfortable? One reason? Anything?

If Williams somehow can engineer a trade that involves prospects who haven't contributed to this turnaround season, then applaud and nominate him for baseball executive of the year.

Nope. No reason. It just would.

But subtracting anything from the Sox's current roster now would only make it trickier to add another division title this year ...

Why? Because Fielder is a Mounds guy and Konerko likes Almond Joy? I've never heard anything about Prince being a club house cancer. Or Dunn for that matter.

Please don't start complaining about the Sox's viability in the playoffs if they stand pat. That's like worrying how you would pay the taxes after winning the lottery.

That is NOT a cheerleading coach's mentality. "Well our cheers are good enough to get us TO state, lets stop here and just be happy for ourselves...everyone gets ice cream!"

It's all about winning the Central first, and tinkering with the roster would disrupt the flow of a team that thinks it has something special going.

Please someone explain to me what that last sentence means. I have no clue. So first you have to win the Central division to make the playoffs. Right. Then you can't get a stud left-handed hitter because it would cause A.J. to become incontinent or something.

It doesn't matter if you agree or if the Sox actually do. It only matters that they believe they do.

David, do you have an editor? If so, he should have printed his paragraph out, slapped you, and rubbed your nose in the printed copy while yelling "No!".

"I don't know why this is, but baseball just seems like a certain vibe you get in the clubhouse where you feel like you can win and sometimes when pieces move or one little thing gets altered, it changes things to where teams that believe don't believe and something gets out of kilter,'' Konerko said.

I don't really buy that logic, but I'll defer to an ALCS MVP on that one.

For the record, Guillen would rather acknowledge Wrigley Field as a baseball landmark than team chemistry as a factor in his team's success."You know how you make chemistry? Win games,'' Guillen said.

YES!!!! Dead frickin on!!!! Ozzie Guillen is now the smarted person in the room.

Yet in the next breath, Guillen allowed that there was something inexplicable about this team that he would like to keep in tact, and that is the message he keeps sending Williams.The quality that's easier to pinpoint than for anybody to explain."Big names don't win games, good teams win games,'' Guillen said.

Hmmmm...true, but big time talent tends to win more games than it losses.

There's only one person Guillen has to worry about not feeling satisfied with the Sox roster before the trade deadline, and he's busy pacing in his office at 35th and Shields.

Case closed!