'City Slickers' weekend a hit for White Sox starting arms

This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin’s White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CHICAGO -- The dates were picked. The names were assembled. Tentative plans were laid out.

All that was needed was the execution.

This scenario might sound somewhat akin to new White Sox pitching coach Zach Bove laying out the 2026 staff. Instead, it’s about an offseason excursion to Davis Martin’s family farm in Texas for Chicago's group of starting pitchers, which was planned at the end of the 2025 season.

We’ve previously dubbed this weekend “City Slickers: White Sox,” so let’s stick with the theme. But for the event to come to fruition from Nov. 17-21, as it did, Martin credits Jonathan Cannon for temporarily moving everyone to Texas.

“Cannon sent his flight information into the group message and basically bully balled everybody else into doing it,” Martin told MLB.com during a recent interview. “Cannon was the first one to book, and then once he sent it in, everybody was like, ‘Now we have to do it, or we look bad.’”

“Davis gave us the dates,” Cannon said. “I remember saying to him because it was right at the end of the season, and we were like, ‘No one is going to book these flights until three days before. You go ahead and book it and send it in, and everyone else will fall in line.’ I’m glad it ended up working out because we had a lot of fun.”

Martin, his wife Jenna, his parents, his brother Brock, and his young son, Doak -- who was the star of the show -- welcomed Cannon, Sean Burke, Shane Smith and Drew Thorpe to Eagle Ranch. They rode four-wheelers and got into hunting blinds, practicing hunter safety.

Even without hunting licenses, they still were able to observe deer, turkey and pigs, and Cannon even saw a bobcat. The Martin brothers had seen four bobcats in the 23 years of the family-owned ranch, according to Davis, before his teammates arrived.

They ate ribeye steaks and plenty of desserts, all while sitting around the campfire and talking about baseball and life -- a favorite part of the trip for Cannon. They also worked off the food by throwing, with Martin taking the group to San Angelo Central High School 45 minutes away, where there's a unique gridiron feature.

“It seats 17,500 for a high school stadium,” said Martin, adding Friday Night Lights into the City Slickers experience. “It kind of took their breath away a little bit.”

“That was the biggest high school stadium I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” said Cannon with a laugh. “I’m sure they have a nicer setup than some colleges. It was pretty cool, but we had a ton of fun there.”

But these exciting experiences stand secondary to the theme of the weekend: White Sox camaraderie. It’s something general manager Chris Getz and his front office have been mindful of as they build a talented young crew throughout this rebuild.

During his first season at the helm in 2025, manager Will Venable set the tone for culture building and finding an overall White Sox identity. The players ran with the idea and took ownership of it, as exhibited by this Texas trip.

“We talk about it in-season all the time, about how much we like to be around each other, how much we enjoy each other,” Martin said. “I hope for people outside looking in, a lot of times that’s just fluff, they are saying that to say that because it makes the team look good that they all like each other. But it’s like we couldn’t wait five or six months to get around each other.”

“It’s just a byproduct of a healthy culture and guys wanting to work together to drive each other, be competitive amongst that group to go out and be a better baseball team,” Getz said at the Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla. “Very cool to learn they got together this offseason. I know it’s a close-knit group and we are all going to benefit because of it.”

When asked why no coaches or front office members were included, Getz smiled and said, “I just assume [the invitation] got lost in the mail.”

Martin sees this get together as becoming annual, but added they might have to build some more rooms or put together some bunk beds to accommodate everyone and avoid too much couch surfing.

“Not to get too sentimental, but just to see -- when my granddad bought this 20 years ago, it’s a really cool place that a lot of memories I have as a kid growing up -- to share it with some of my friends, not only just friends, but your friends in the big leagues,” Martin said. “It’s a lot of fun, so we love to share that with everybody.”

“There’s an underlying understanding that yeah, we know there are only five spots in the rotation, but we also know that we want to succeed together,” Cannon said. “We want to be those five guys, succeeding and continuing to grow together. It’s in everything.”