By Tim Vickery

Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela all played international friendlies over the last few days, and some of them will be in action again this week.

The phrase 'international friendly' suggests that people from different nations come together to compete and to forge respect and understanding through football.

Pablo Aimar in action for Argentina

International football can claim to provide respite for some from the death and destruction that have stopped the planet in its tracks over recent weeks.

The World Cup brings normal conversation to a standstill in more than 200 countries.

But there are no pictures of fragments of people lying in the road.

Instead, there is the flowering of human potential, both individual and collective - and nothing more serious than refereeing mistakes and the odd off-the-ball incident.

Football is the true universal language, open to those of all sizes and races, a means by which culture can speak unto culture.

The game is, of course, a long way from being perfect. Many of its problems reflect the world in which it exists.

There is, for example, the greed and the arrogance of the developed nations, and corrupt leadership in many of the less developed nations.

But the soul of the game will never belong to the shareholders of the rich European clubs, or the South American director steering transfer fee money into a tax haven bank account.

Football offers those born on the wrong side of the tracks the chance to shine

The soul of football belongs to the kid on the outskirts of Buenos Aires who throws down an old jumper to make a goalpost.

It was by drawing on talent from that kind of background that Argentina won three of the last four World Youth Cups.

Indeed, were it not for the war they would currently be defending their title in the United Arab Emirates.

José Pekerman is the coach who took them to so many titles.

He makes a fascinating distinction between moulding young players in First and Third World backgrounds.

He makes it clear the size does not matter.

"I give priority to finding kids with skill," he said. "So we can quickly get them in contact with nutritionists. That's not a problem they have in Europe, because the state provides these things.

"Over there the kid will always be first an athlete and then a footballer. For us it's the other way round."

The jinking runs of the lightweight Pablo Aimar or the electric bursts of the stocky Javier Saviola are proof in action of Pekerman's philosophy.

They can make giant defenders collide into each other like circus clowns.

Football offers those born on the wrong side of the tracks the chance to shine.

It gives them a rare opportunity to compete on equal terms with their richer cousins.

It seems to be that once this war is over we will need football more than ever.

We will need as many international friendlies as we can get.

Posted on Sun, Mar. 30, 2003 By BOB DUTTON The Kansas City Star

Anyone who has ever tried to impose their advice on a skeptical boss can identify with a baseball scout. He believes he can see something no one else does.

That was the case three years ago when Albert Gonzalez tried to persuade Royals general manager Allard Baird to shell out a few thousand bucks on a slow, small, skinny kid from Urama, Venezuela, named Andres Blanco.

"Allard, I really like this kid," Gonzalez said. "He can't run a lick, but he's got great hands. Get ready. Because when he's eligible to sign, I'm going to need a little money."

When Blanco turned 16 in 2000, Gonzalez renewed his plea. He wanted $4,000 to land the kid on a free-agent contract. Now, $4,000 is not just peanuts -- it's peanut shells in terms of a top American draft pick.

But it's big money for an unknown player along the back roads of Latin America, where talent is abundant but so raw that even the keenest of scouting eyes often resorts to simple gut instinct.

Gonzalez had that instinct about Blanco, having made a first-hand assessment in following up on the recommendation of Venezuelan scouting supervisor Juan Indriago.

Baird took a closer look and saw a kid who was maybe 5-feet-8 and not even 140 pounds. OK, he figured, kids fill out. But when he heard that Blanco's speed was 7.3 seconds for 60 yards, Baird threw up his hands.

"Albert, I can't have a shortstop for the Kansas City Royals who runs 7.3," Baird said. "There's no way."

But Gonzalez, then in his second year as the club's scouting director for Latin America, kept pushing.

"Allard, I'm telling you," Gonzalez said, "I think he's going to get quicker."

Baird couldn't get past that ponderous 7.3 time for the 60.

"Allard, I'm telling you," Gonzalez persisted, "I have a good feeling about this kid. I think he's going to be a player."

A former scout himself, Baird knew that feeling, how a certain helplessness engulfs you when you see something special slipping away because you can't find the right words to make your case.

"Albert, tell me when he's going to be ready to play in the big leagues and help us win ballgames," Baird challenged. "And that must mean that his speed is better."

Gonzalez swallowed and said, "Allard, he'll be there by 2004."

Baird nodded. "OK, you've got your money."

III

Venezuela has long been a hotbed for talent in the Caribbean.

Blanco is one of roughly 20 Venezuelans in the Royals' minor-league system. The list includes infielders Alejandro Machado and Luis Ordaz, each of whom spent time this spring in the major-league camp.

"If you make a comparison of numbers," Royals scouting director Deric Ladnier said, "the Dominican Republic is still the top place in Latin America. But Venezuela is No. 2."

But Venezuela also has always been a dangerous place to search for talent.

"When I was with the Braves," Ladnier recalled, "we had a kid, named Blanco, ironically. I saw him pitch one day, and the next day he was dead. Got shot in the back of the head over a gold chain when he got mugged.

"You hear about (Astros outfielder Richard) Hidalgo and the car-jacking. It's just a volatile situation. But we're still scouting Venezuela."

The U.S. State Department now advises Americans to avoid Venezuela because of the civil unrest created by opposition to the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez.

The Royals, accordingly, no longer send scouts into Venezuela. Even Gonzalez doesn't venture into the country from his base at the Royals' academy in the Dominican Republic.

"When the government sends out a memo saying it's not safe for Americans," Ladnier said, "then, obviously, we have to take heed of that."

But Indriago is still in Caracas. Two other part-time scouts, Maracay Aragua and Estado Anzuategui, continue to search for talent.

"We now have to rely on our local people," Ladnier said, "but it's even more challenging for them because of the gas shortage (caused by an oil workers' strike against the government)."

It's also difficult just to get supplies into Venezuela.

"FedEx stopped delivering down there," Ladnier said. "We brought one of our Venezuelan scouts in to spring training and loaded him down with equipment because we didn't know if we could get equipment down to him."

But ask Ladnier if the added effort is worth it, and he doesn't hesitate.

"Talent is talent," he said. "It's far more challenging than it used to be, but you're still intrigued by wanting to get the talent."

III

Andres Blanco won't turn 19 until next month, but at 5-feet-10 and 155 pounds, he now shows clear signs of starting to fill out. His speed is down to 6.8 for the 60 -- still slow, but acceptable.

And those marvelously soft hands that so intrigued Gonzalez? Blanco's defensive skills are now being likened to Cleveland's Omar Vizquel, a nine-time Gold Glove winner.

"Let's be honest," Baird said. "I didn't know if Blanco was going to get faster. But that scout believed, and that scout was the key because Blanco did get faster.

"At 7.3, almost nobody is going to sign him. But if we wait until he's running a 6.8 to sign him, we've got no chance."

Blanco is rated by Baseball America as the club's best minor-league infield prospect. He could indeed be ready for the majors by 2004.

Posted on Sun, Mar. 30, 2003 BY MIKE BERARDINO South Florida Sun-Sentinel

PHOENIX - (KRT) - Francisco Rodriguez stands tall, tucks his glove over his heart, looks in for the sign and prepares to make his pitch.

Only that's not a baseball in his right hand, it's a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. And this isn't the pitcher's mound at Edison International Field but a cavernous sound studio of high wood beams and cold concrete floors.

A hard midafternoon rain is falling outside, but the man-child who helped pitch the Anaheim Angels to their first World Series title can't hope for a rainout to spring him from this assignment.

K-Rod is stuck here for the next four hours shilling for a soft-drink company that is paying him handsomely for the right to slap his image on cans and cardboard cutouts from Southern California to his native Caracas, Venezuela.

This is just one of the endorsement deals Rodriguez, 21, has signed in the wake of his staggering rise to prominence last October. There's also a two-year contract with Nike, and his marketing representative, Scott Becher of Miami Beach-based Sports & Sponsorships, is still sifting through numerous other offers.

"His appeal is so special for somebody his age," Becher says during a break. "Frankie has the poise of a veteran. He's very comfortable with himself."

On the field, that much is obvious. Here, however, nothing comes naturally, especially with his two young daughters crying in the next room, but K-Rod gamely fights on.

He stands before a bright green background, clutches the big bottle of fizz, turns on his megawatt smile and tries to concentrate. Speaking in Spanish, he repeatedly invites potential viewers to "look for the Pepsi promotion at a store near you."

Three takes go by, then six, then a dozen. The kid who turned the World Series on its ear is growing frustrated.

"Lots of excitement, K-Rod," the director says. "Big smile, now. This is exciting!"

Finally, on Take No. 19, everybody is happy. Rodriguez then moves on to the English-language spot and nails it in two takes.

Ninety minutes of still photos follow.

"That was boring, man," Rodriguez says a few days later at Angels camp. "It was, `Stand up, do this, do that, go over here, stand right there, put your arm like this. Smile, don't smile.' Damn."

Endorsement work may bore K-Rod, but he is nothing short of fascinating when it comes to his primary profession. As compelling as Rodriguez's story was last season, when he began the year at Double-A Arkansas and wound up blowing away Barry Bonds on the sport's ultimate stage, he bears even greater attention now.

He remains a rookie, for starters, thanks to the technicality that landed him on the postseason roster with just two weeks of big-league experience. What's more, the baseball world will be watching to see if this former bonus baby with the high-90s fastball can keep his roll going or if he'll fade into the pack.

No one with the Angels is expecting any backsliding.

"He's got things in the proper perspective," Angels General Manager Bill Stoneman says. "He understands you've got to prove yourself. He's more mature than his age. That's what we've got here."

Rodriguez spent the winter in his troubled Venezuela but didn't go out much for fear of being robbed or worse. The political strife kept him from seeing his fiancee, Andrea Harvey, or their two daughters for more than one week all winter, but their bond is clear on that rainy afternoon in Phoenix.

When Rodriguez is able to break away between sessions, 2-year-old Adriana runs up to her Papi with a hug. Destiny, born last May while her daddy was pitching in Little Rock, watches the proceedings intently between afternoon feedings.

"It's kind of funny how everybody wants to do something with him now," Harvey says. "A year ago, they could care less."

They met three years ago at minor league spring training but didn't start dating until he was pitching during the 2000 season for Class A Lake Elsinore in the California desert. Harvey, the daughter of a Southern California police officer, was best friends with the wife of Rodriguez's roommate, Nelson Castro, but it wasn't love at first sight.

"I knew (Rodriguez) was young, and I knew he had signed for something ($950,000) because he was kind of, like, macho and driving around in his white Mustang convertible," she says, smiling. "He had his friends in the back and he was just screeching all over the place. I just thought he was some young kid that was just, like, a troublemaker, really."

A double date at a dance club helped change that perception, and soon they became inseparable, the cop's little girl and the baseball prodigy from Venezuela.

"He used to tell me all the time he was going to send me to jail," says Harvey, who at 23 is two years older. "I told him, `You're over 18.""

He helped her learn Spanish, which she speaks constantly to their daughters. She helped him with his English, which he has picked up remarkably well, although he remains self-conscious, especially around strangers.

"He knows perfect (English)," she says. "Sometimes he doesn't think he knows something and he doesn't want people to laugh at him. He doesn't want to be embarrassed."

When the Angels were having trouble reaching Rodriguez during the offseason, they went through Harvey. She would track him down through friends or family and could relay messages back to the Angels, often within an hour or two.

When visas were scarce, there was talk of using a Canadian work visa or sending Rodriguez through the Dominican Republic on his way to spring training. Eventually he was able to land on these shores the conventional way, thanks to Harvey letting him know he needed to get to the U.S. embassy in Caracas.

She's a good influence on him, everybody says. Helps keep him grounded. Helps keep the K-Rod part of his personality from forcing plain old Francisco clear out of the picture.

"It's been kind of crazy for both of us," she says. "I'm not used to being in the spotlight. It's funny, you'll see people that didn't want to go to his games when he was in the minor leagues. Now, all of a sudden, he's such a good guy and they want to go see him."

Nobody's laughing at K-Rod now.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS March 29, 2003 11:54 p.m.

SEATTLE - Homecoming weekend for Kasey Keller featured an efficient shutout.

The highlights for the United States were delivered by Jovan Kirovski and Landon Donovan, each scoring a spectacular goal as the Americans beat Venezuela 2-0 in an exhibition game Saturday.

Keller, from nearby Olympia, made only two saves but didn't need to be a star as he improved to 14-0-4 in his last 18 home games for the national team.

"It's always nice for a goalkeeper to come into a game and not concede a goal, especially in front of your friends and family and hometown crowd," said Keller, the starter for Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League.

He was among six Americans seeing their first international action since the 1-0 quarterfinal loss to Germany at last year's World Cup.

"It has been a long year," Keller said. "I played every game for Tottenham, and it should have been an opportunity to stay at home and have this weekend off. But I was really excited to come back and train in Portland and then come back and play in the new Seahawks Stadium."

It was even an longer break from the national team for Kirovski, who hadn't played since a 4-2 loss at Germany last March.

"I've been out for a while, but it was great to be in the camp with everybody, to see everybody again," Kirovski said. "None of this is new to me. I've been around a while."

The layoff showed during a scoreless first half for both sides, with many U.S. centering passes too high or off the mark.

The United States, improving to 3-1 this year, took over in the 52nd minute when Kirovski knocked the ball into the left side of the goal after a flurry when the defense disappeared.

Brian McBride sent a shot off a post and the rebound went to Carlos Bocanegra, whose shot went off the crossbar and bounced to Kirovski.

"Brian headed it, and Carlos sent it off the bar, and it just came to me," Kirovski said. "I just made sure I put it in the net. It was like pingpong."

It was the first goal against the improving Venezuelans in four games, dating to a 2-0 loss to Morocco on March 3, 2002.

"They're a team that's defended well over the past year," U.S. coach Bruce Arena said.

Donovan, who replaced Kirovski in the 60th minute, put the Americans ahead 2-0 in the 76th minute with another great goal. He took a pass from John O'Brien and sprinted up the left side, beating two defenders and drawing out goalkeeper Gilberto Angelucci.

With McBride open in front of the net, Donovan slotted the ball with his right foot and it went in just inside the far post for his eighth goal in 33 international appearances.

"Johnny gave me a ball in the middle, and I turned with it," Donovan said. "I didn't really have a chance to think about what I was doing. There were a couple of guys on me, so I did what came natural."

With European leagues off and Major League Soccer not starting until April 5, the U.S. team had many of its top players, fielding a lineup that included Keller, McBride, O'Brien, Frankie Hejduk, Eddie Pope and Earnie Stewart.

The Venezuelans, who put up a strong defense throughout the first half, were a late replacement for Japan, which canceled its U.S. trip after the outbreak of war in Iraq.

"It was a good game for us," Arena said. "Venezuela defended quite well, especially in the first half. We weren't as sharp as we needed to be. Second half, we got it going. ... Earnie and Landon provided the energy we needed. They gave us a spark."

Notes: Keller, the backup to Brad Friedel at last year's World Cup, got his 29th shutout in 61 appearances, three shutouts short of Tony Meola's record. It was Keller's first game since last May 19, when he played the second half against the Netherlands in the last pre-World Cup exhibition game for the U.S. team. ... The Americans' next game is against Mexico on May 8 at Houston.

<a href=chicagosports.chicagotribune.com>By Bonnie DeSimone Tribune staff reporter

March 29, 2003, 8:27 PM CST TUCSON, Ariz. — Spring 1999, Fenway Park, White Sox at Red Sox. Two out, promising young player on second. Promising young player bolts for third base, is caught stealing. Rally snuffed. Manager shakes head in dugout.

A moment later, Jerry Manuel took his talented right fielder into the tunnel where he could speak to him privately.

"I said, 'Magglio, you're an All-Star, and All-Stars don't make those kinds of mistakes,'" Manuel said. "I was really kind of hot at him. I don't know what it did, but he looked at me real strange."

Thing was, Magglio Ordonez hadn't made an All-Star team—yet.

"I remember that night," Ordonez said. "I needed someone to tell me that. Sometimes you need a push. Sometimes you need somebody to say you're this and you can make that. When they tell you that, you challenge yourself.

"I made All-Star that year. The game was in Boston too."

That exchange from four years ago illustrates the essence of Ordonez, a self-starter who rarely needs someone else to turn the key in his ignition. His career has been a steady upward incline, a rising line drive of the kind he routinely smacks these days.

With near-numbing consistency, Ordonez has batted .300-plus, hit 30 or more home runs and driven in 100-plus runs for four straight seasons. His career-best numbers from last year: a .320 average, 189 hits, 38 home runs and 135 RBIs. In the second year of a three-year contract extension signed in 2001, he will make $9 million this year and $14 million in 2004.

He has been named to three All-Star teams since Manuel's prescient scolding, earned the respect of teammates and opponents, done everything, it seems, except become a celebrity. That's partly by choice and partly because the White Sox have made the playoffs just once during Ordonez's ascent, exiting in the divisional round in 2000.

Ordonez, 29, is a Clark Kent among ballplayers, an amiable, unassuming man who is transformed into something else by his uniform. Off the field, he is a product of his laid-back coastal hometown in Venezuela, a place where life is lived at a Caribbean tempo. At work he is a resolute crusader.

Like the fictional Superman, Ordonez isn't crazy about being recognized when he's in civvies.

"I like my freedom," he said.

He is a known quantity in his native Venezuela and in Chicago, where Sox fans serenade him by chanting "Oh-ee-oh, Mag-lee-oh" to the familiar march from "The Wizard of Oz." But he can move around in Miami, his off-season home, and elsewhere relatively undisturbed.

"Because of his personality, it's probably the way he likes it," Manuel said. "I think he likes to be noticed, but I don't know if he likes the responsibility that goes along with all that stuff."

But that ambivalence doesn't diminish Ordonez's zeal to help lift the Sox to a division title and beyond. They open the 2003 season Monday in Kansas City.

"It's not enough for him to have these numbers at the end of the year and go home and say, 'Look at me, look at what I did,'" Sox general manager Ken Williams said. "He wants to do it on a championship team.

"He wants to win a batting title, and I think he's capable of it. He wants to drive in more runs, hit more home runs, but he wants to do it all in the team concept—which makes him a little different from some other players I won't mention. You don't see many fourth hitters in major-league baseball who will try to hit a ball to the second baseman to move a runner from second to third with no outs."

Ordonez is notably dedicated to his conditioning, arriving earlier than most of his teammates most days, putting in extra time lifting and running. He worked out this off-season with fellow Miami resident Alex Rodriguez of the Texas Rangers in the gym used by the University of Miami football team and hired a track coach to keep up with his speed work.

He is also the kind of person who puts stock in motivational words that might roll off someone else. "I call him 'the Philosopher,'" Manuel said. "He says these things that are a little different but have great meaning to him."

Cheerleading is not in Ordonez's nature, but he searched over the winter for a quiet gesture that would show his desire to lead by something other than example. He asked Sox conditioning coach Steve Odgers to help him design a T-shirt for the team to wear in spring training. Ordonez outlined the things he wanted to express, and Odgers came up with the wording.

The shirt bears this manifesto on its front:

Great teams possess great leaders

Leaders step up when opportunity and circumstance call

Get ready, your chance will come

Together: All of us are better than one of us

And these more specific marching orders on its back:

Chicago White Sox 2003

Championship Season

Commitment to Team

Commitment to Discipline

Commitment to Excellence

It's verbose, unlike the man himself. When Ordonez is asked to reveal his own heart's mantra, in his first language, he pauses before uttering one lyrical, multisyllabic word:

"Perseverancia."

Perseverance. "That's the most important," Ordonez said. "I was not really that good a player when I was in the minors. I was like everybody else. Nobody knew my name. And I did it. That's why I'm here, because I had discipline and I never gave up."

It took more than a single bound to leap this tall building.

Soccer player too

Ordonez grew up in Coro, an old colonial city of 150,000 on the northern coast of Venezuela that is a departure point for the resort islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.

"People over there, they're not hungry for money," Ordonez said. "They work to eat and buy clothes, and that's it. Life is simple. You never know how long you're going to be alive, so you have to enjoy."

He returns home each winter for a visit, and though his family was unaffected by the recent turmoil there, it troubled him.

"I was worried about all the people there," Ordonez said. "It's hard for me and everyone else, because we don't make any decisions. I never believe in being political, only doing the best you can. When I play, it's for my family and my country. Sometimes it's the only positive thing they see."

Ordonez is the youngest of seven children, and his lineage is a typical South American mix of European, indigenous and Latino. His father, Maglio, "gave me an extra 'g' for luck," Ordonez said. He named his own son Magglio Jr. and his daughter Maggliana to continue the tradition.

The elder Ordonez worked construction and drove a cab. He did not encourage his other three sons, all bigger than the 6-foot Magglio, to play baseball.

"Maybe he saw something in me he didn't see in them," Ordonez said.

As a child Ordonez played two sports, the national pastime of baseball and the continental passion, soccer. He idolized Italian soccer star Paolo Rossi, who scored six goals in the 1982 World Cup, and flamboyant Argentine Diego Maradona.

If Venezuela had not been so overshadowed by the nearby soccer behemoths of Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, he might have chosen to pursue a career as a striker. He still follows the sport and is a fan of the elite Spanish club Real Madrid.

Instead, he began playing organized baseball at 13 and was invited to the Houston Astros' academy in Valencia, Venezuela, at 17, along with future big leaguers Bobby Abreu and Richard Hidalgo.

For three months Ordonez and the other prospects shared hotel rooms and cabs, washed their clothes in the sink and tried to impress. When the Astros released him, his roommate, Melvin Mora, who soon would sign with Houston, thought they were making a mistake.

Mora contacted a White Sox scout he knew, the late Oscar Rendon, and told him Ordonez deserved a second look.

"We're all like brothers," Mora, now an Orioles outfielder, said of his pivotal assist.

(Ordonez demonstrated a similar loyalty when he arranged for a private plane to bring the pregnant wife of fellow Venezuelan Jackson Melian, a Cubs minor-league outfielder, to the United States this winter so she could deliver their baby away from the civil unrest at home.)

Rendon made a date to meet Ordonez at the ballpark the next morning at 9. The scout was late. Ordonez had been waiting since "about 5," he remembered, with his bag packed to go home.

"I almost left," he said.

After seeing Ordonez throw and hit, Rendon made a couple of phone calls. Within a day, Ordonez had signed his first contract, for a $3,500 bonus plus $500 a month. He did a stint in the Dominican summer league, then reported for duty with the Sox.

Help from Joshua

One of his earliest mentors was former White Sox hitting coach Von Joshua, who worked with him at nearly every level as the two moved up through the ranks together.

"I had him in my first working group in spring training," said Joshua, now a Cubs minor-league hitting instructor. "I was new with the organization and I wasn't saying much. He was the first guy I ever spoke up about. They were going to send him back to Venezuela and I said, 'Wait a minute, you guys.'"

Ordonez's chief problem was his stance, which he altered frequently.

"It was Willie Mays one day, Carl Yastrzemski another, Hank Aaron another," Joshua said.

Gradually, he got Ordonez to settle into a version of his current pose, with feet planted wide and right elbow held high, but not too high.

"Cambio esta stance, tu esta muerta," Joshua threatened half-seriously in his middling Spanish. Change this stance and you're a dead man.

Williams gives Joshua a lot of credit for Ordonez's development.

"He didn't just take the time to discuss mechanics; he took the time to sit with him in the dugout and prepare him mentally as if he were in the major leagues," the general manager said.

Ordonez was brought along slowly, perpetually hanging on as a fourth outfielder behind shinier-looking faces. He spent three seasons at the Class A level, two in Hickory, N.C., and one with the Prince William Cannons in Virginia.

He learned his first English by watching closed-caption broadcasts of ESPN's "SportsCenter." He tried to learn to hit breaking balls, too, but wasn't always successful, batting .216, .294 and .238. Williams, then troubleshooting the Sox farm system, once found Ordonez sitting in the Hickory dugout with tears in his eyes after striking out four times in a game.

Winter ball would be a saving grace. Ordonez pushed himself year-round, returning to Venezuela to play for the Caribes Oriente team in Puerto la Cruz. It was also there that he met his wife-to-be, Dagly.

Fred Kendall, a Colorado Rockies instructor who managed Ordonez in Hickory and in Venezuela, said playing in his home country against varied, tough competition boosted his confidence.

"He was one of the younger kids who could hold his own," Kendall said. "His field awareness was above average, even then."

But after Ordonez's 1996 season with Double-A Birmingham, the Sox elected not to put him on the major-league roster, leaving him unprotected that November and meaning any other team could have taken him in the December Rule 5 draft.

Although Ordonez batted only .263, he had started hefting a 40-ounce bat and used it to swat 18 home runs, a significant number in the Barons' spacious park. That winter he was voted most valuable player of the Venezuelan League. The next season he had a monster year at Triple-A Nashville, beating out future Sox teammate Jeff Abbott for the American Association batting title in the last week of the season.

"Hindsight is 20/20," said Duane Shaffer, the Sox's senior director of player personnel. "He had all the tools, but nothing stood out. We made a mistake, and we were lucky no one else took him.

"He stayed in the background for four or five years, plugging along. We were always looking at somebody else. But it might have been a blessing in disguise. It gave him a chance to grow without the attention."

He is an ill-kept secret now.

"I don't know how much better he can get," Sox first baseman Paul Konerko said. "He never looks bad. He looks like he knows what he's doing all the time. He can throw, hit and run. There's only a few of those guys.

"He knows what it took to get here, and he's never going to get away from that. He doesn't read his own headlines. For a guy who puts up the numbers he does, he's pretty low-maintenance. But if he keeps doing what he's doing, eight years from now he'll be up with the legends. I'm just glad I have a front-row seat to see it."

Student of hitting

Ordonez thinks before he speaks, and when something defies expression for a moment, he rubs his forehead, hard, willing the words to come out.

This is what he does when he talks about hitting, a subject he will never finish studying.

"People think hitting is easy," he said, looking pained and earnest, massaging furrows into the space above his brow. "Hitting is not easy."

And similarly: "Being a leader is a really, really hard thing to do."

And on this year's All-Star Game, in his home ballpark: "I don't want to talk about that because I'll put too much pressure on myself. Hopefully I'll be there."

He may make the game look simple, but Ordonez knows he has a tendency to overthink, to be overly hard on himself, to refuse to relax. He gets a dreamy look when he describes three days he spent on the ocean off the coast of Venezuela on his boat last winter, anchoring at a deserted island, spearfishing with a few buddies.

But that is a rare exception. Most of the time Ordonez either is playing baseball or contemplating it.

On this particular week in Tucson, he was living by a particular set of aphorisms, the ones Manuel finds so intriguing, a way to measure the depth of Ordonez's still water.

"I don't look for the game; I want the game to come to me," Ordonez said. "Wait for your pitch, wait for the situation and be patient. It's going to come.

"When you play the game like you're supposed to play, the game's going to come to you."

It has, after a long wait.