Playing nice?

PITTSBURGH – It was hard to guess which was more shocking to several White Sox players as they headed to Pittsburgh Monday evening: that Ken Williams was on the team flight, making his first road trip of the season or that the general manager was going out of his way to play nice with manager Ozzie Guillen.

Asked about the flight East to Pittsburgh, Guillen described it as "Fine.''

"I think we got to put everything on the side, continue to work with this ballclub,'' Guillen said of his professional relationship with Williams. "We have a job to do, and we got to respect our jobs. We have to

be professional with our job. We talk about it and we move forward. We have to move forward. You go backwards, and then you're not doing good for this organization. The only thing about this, our players don't even care about this. It's our job to move forward and to make this thing, I don't want to say happier, just make it what is was. How is it going to happen? We got to work on it.''

Guillen was asked if they spoke strictly about the team or if they also discussed their problems.

"Team,'' he replied. "We talk about how good we played the past couple games, conversation about what's important thing for us for a month to get to where we want to get and see what happens.''

This did come as a bit of a shock to some of the players, especially since most of them had heard about the confrontation last Tuesday.

While Guillen admitted that his players might know about the troubles between manager and GM, he knew it wouldn't bother them.

The one thing Sox players learn quickly is that it's about performance. The sideshows? Those are distractions that actually benefit the players.

"Not with us,'' Guillen replied, when asked if the off-the-field drama could be a distraction. "Maybe with another club. Not this club. I think we play better. We played better last 1½ weeks. But not at all. Very professional ballclub. Very easy-going guys. They don't care what happens off the field. Just perform. And I'm lucky. We're lucky to have the talent and kind of people we have because they could have made an excuse about the way they're playing.

"No, they don't care about that. They go out there and play the game. I control the stuff off the field.''

Guillen might have a point.

Since Williams and Guillen went all "Jersey Shore'' on each other, the Sox have won four of their last six games heading into the Pirates series.

"I don't think that thing is going to bother anyone because that's nobody's business,'' Guillen added. "As long as it's my job to make sure [the players] compete and stay away from that stuff that they're not concerned.''