First-year White Sox manager Robin Ventura was one of the "Shoot the Puck" contestants at Tuesday's Blackhawks game.

The crowd gave the new South Side skipper a warm ovation as he stepped up to shoot. Ventura didn't make any of his three shots. He got close, but no cigar. But hey, it's all about the experience right?

In a chat before his shot with CSN's Sarah Kustok, Ventura talked about the upcoming SoxFest as well as impending spring training.

Ventura also discussed how proud he was to be back with the White Sox. Take a look at his hockey form and the interview:

The Blue Jays announced that they have given Mark Teahen his unconditional release. They designated the infielder/outfielder for assignment earlier in the month and will be responsible for paying his $5.5MM salary in 2012.

Teahen joined the Blue Jays in the three-way deal that sent Edwin Jackson to St. Louis and Colby Rasmus to Toronto. The 30-year-old posted a .200/.273/.300 line in 177 plate appearances for the White Sox and Blue Jays in 2011, appearing at all four corner positions.

The Montreal Expo's apparently have a twitter account. A recent tweet from them:

You can watch the 9th inning of Dennis Martinez' Perfect Game, with the original French play-by-play, here: http://goo.gl/mxt1D #elperfecto

http://www.rds.ca/zv2/index.html?video=55438

http://twitter.com/#!/Montreal_Expos

Very interesting to hear baseball and the French language together.

Random Fact: Rockford, Illinois was home to the Rockford Expos (1988-1992). This same team was managed by Mike Quade from 1989-1992.

You can click the title of this post for a direct link.

"ARLINGTON, Texas — With the amateur draft less than two weeks away, scouting director Doug Laumann believes a deep, pitching-heavy draft will enable the White Sox to get some "pretty good players" despite not having a pick until No. 47.

"I've eliminated 20 to 25 guys," said Laumann, who won't have a first-round pick because of the free-agent signing of Adam Dunn. "The claim that people are saying this is the best draft in 20 years, I don't have a great feel for. But at 47, I feel there are a lot of quality guys who will be there around the second, third and fourth rounds."

Ozzie will not be allowed to manage Friday (tonight) and tomorrow. I am assuming Joey Cora will be managing the club.

Great article calling out both Luke Scott and ESPN in regards to Luke Scott.

"Luke Scott is a gun-humping birther survivalist lunatic who keeps a pistol in his sofa cushion and throws plantain chips at a black teammate when he acts "like a savage." Sounds like an asshole, right? But things aren't so simple, ESPN's Amy K. Nelson tells us in her recent profile of Scott, and she's absolutely right: Luke Scott is a gun-humping birther survivalist lunatic who's lucky to have ESPN acting as his publicist."

"Felix is my friend," he says. "I give him a hard time. The reason why I give him a hard time is because there are certain people you deal with and you go up and talk to them, and it doesn't work. They don't understand.
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"Another example: According to the story, Scott sees himself as a sort of missionary, here to Americanize his foreign, "dark-skinned" (Nelson's word) teammates by teaching them to adhere to "basic principles" that "trace back to the founders of this country."
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"I tell him about some of the ways he's acted: 'Look, you're acting like an animal, you're acting like a savage.'"

Scott turns to his locker and pulls out a bag of plantain chips.

"So I throw bananas in his helmet. Here are my banana chips to remind him that whenever he acts like an animal, 'Hey, that's what other people are thinking. They're just not telling you, but that's what they're thinking about."

Something tells me this guy would never work out with the White Sox.

Looks like Seabs is back! Do not know how I feel about this, if he was concussed. It has been difficult to gather information, partly because the Hawks stuck him back out on the ice after the injury. Obviously if he was concussed, that was a no-no.

We will just have to wait and see.

Hoping for a good game! Go Hawks!

I do not even really know what to say about this:

Update: Evidently he contributed vocals and the drums!

AM800 news has learned that former NHL star Bob Probert has died after efforts to revive him when he was rushed to a Windsor hospital with no vital signs. Probert, a former Detroit Red Wing forward, was on a boat in Lake St. Clair when an emergency call was made. EMS and fire met the boat and started CPR, but sources say Probert was not revived.

The first major roster move of the year went down after the Sox's 5-4 win over Pittsburgh, as Dayan Viciedo was promoted to the major leagues and Jayson Nix was designated for assignment.

The White Sox already have a starting rotation considered by many to be one of the best in the majors.

Mark Buehrle, Jake Peavy, Gavin Floyd, John Danks, and Freddy Garcia. Not too shabby.

But in an interview with Kenny Williams on Monday here in Glendale, the Sox general manager revealed to CSN that he came close to making the staff even better. Much, much better.

Who is this mystery person?

Although he wouldn’t come out and actually say it, you can bet that his first name is Roy, his last name is Halladay, and the Sox would have had a starting rotation for the ages.

Williams admitted that the Sox were close to acquiring a big-time player this off-season (a player other than Johnny Damon). Pressed about who it was, Kenny first said, "I don’t think I should go down that road."

Was it a pitcher?

Williams paused. Paused again. And then made the most profound statement of 2010:

"It may have given us a chance to have the best rotation maybe in the history of the game."

The history of the game?

Kenny back-tracked a bit saying, "The best 5-man rotation," but he was clearly doing his best to go down the road I was trying to take him without having to say the name "Roy Halladay."

"It’s a guy. Just a guy," Williams answered with a grin that traveled from Glendale to Tucson.

When the Blue Jays put their ace on the trading block this winter, the Sox tried to put a package together to lure Halladay to Chicago. But after shelling out roughly $100 million for Jake Peavy and Alex Rios the previous summer, finding enough money to pay for Halladay was likely the biggest stumbling block.

That wasn’t a problem for the Philadelphia Phillies, who acquired Halladay from Toronto in a 3-team trade and proceeded to sign the All-Star pitcher to a 3-year, $60-million extension in December.

Other highlights from our interview:

When I brought up the expiring contracts for A.J. Pierzynski and Paul Konerko, two "White Sox icons" as I called them, Kenny interrupted, saying, "You’re calling A.J. an icon? I’m going to give Konerko the icon line. With A.J. I can’t."

He was joking.

So why don’t you give him a contract extension?

"Number one, that’s none of your business when and how we sign guys," Williams said.

He wasn’t joking.

"What makes you think we haven’t talked about it?"

Okay, I’ll ask. Have you talked?

"That’s none of your business," Williams said with a smile. "When we have something to announce we’ll announce it. I’m going to ask him, ask what his expectations are, and match them up with what I see our future roster looking like, budget issues looking like, minor league guys coming up, a guy right behind him in Tyler Flowers coming up, and how that would work in the overall grand scheme of things, because we’re always trying to win."

Williams continued, "The good thing about all of this is that we’ve positioned ourselves to where there are younger players that are knocking on the door, just like (Konerko and Pierzynski) were younger players knocking on the door. With that we’ve got options now."

But the Sox general manager is prepared to have those good-bye conversations to both Pierzynski and Konerko. It’s just a matter of when.

"There’s going to come a time whether it’s this year, or the next year where I’ve got to tell an A.J. or a Konerko (goodbye) if I’m here, so it’s going to be hard either way."

Orioles starting right-hander Brad Bergesen will not be able to fully participate in spring training for at least 10 days after pitchers and catchers report Wednesday because of a strained right shoulder capsule that he injured during the filming of an Orioles TV commercial in early December.