Benetti: Draft process can be impactful on both sides

With the 11th overall pick, the White Sox select Jake Burger, third baseman, Missouri State.

That one line - said similarly, sometimes flatly, sometimes conversationally, usually accurately, always with less exuberance than the subject feels when hearing it from Manfred, Silver, Goodell and Bettman and associates year after year - fundamentally alters the existence of so many.

Jake Burger himself, he of 22-home-run fame at Missouri State, becomes the next hope for the Chicago White Sox. His father, mother, family members, teachers, coaches, teammates, friends, former bosses, mini golf buddies, Ping-Pong challengers, hockey rivals and fellow Sox fans all now are, in at least a small way, spokes connected to a hub entitled "Jake Burger, MLB draft pick." Like Jennifer Grey was always Ferris' sister, everyone on this list becomes "Jake Burger's __", at least to some.

This transformation happened 40 times to players and acquaintances over the weekend on campuses in Springfield, MO, Winston-Salem, NC, Albuquerque, NM to high school communities in Washington and here in Illinois and other points in between. Think about it. How many people can you call acquaintances? Hundreds? Thousands?

The Sox decide the fate of the players and the people in their circles in a suite at Guaranteed Rate Field which becomes the "war room." The major attraction, outside of the giant electronics-store-four-square-demo TV with draft coverage playing, is the board on the back wall. It's filled with colored tabs with all of the players' names who the Sox deem to be draft-worthy. Blue paper is for college players, yellow for high school. If your name is in a certain color, you're a switch hitter. If you have a colored dot next to your name, you might have a medical issue or be a signability risk. If you have a star next to your name, the Sox scouts really see something special in you.

When I was in the room, just before, during and after the Sox took Evan Skoug, a catcher from TCU, in the seventh round, the defining characteristic was the quietude. I always imagined a major-league team's draft room to be something like the main setting of Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men. Maybe it was in the first round, but not so much here now. It makes sense. The other 364 days are for compiling and deliberating and stacking. Draft Day is for finalizing.

Sox scouts, directors, analytics folks and others sat around a large boardroom table. Most were looking at computer screens or talking softly to those nearby. Others, strewed in chairs in an outer circle, were holding conversations among themselves. Facing the board were scouting director Nick Hostetler, general manager Rick Hahn and assistant GM Jeremy Haber, deciding if a bus driver in Libertyville was going to claim one day that he "drove the kid the Sox drafted to school back in the day" or if some other team name would have to be substituted. They decided on Skoug. The pick was relayed to Manager of Baseball Operations Dan Strittmatter who announced it to the rest of MLB via conference call. And that was all, except to turn up the volume to listen to the rapid-fire reaction of the TV analysts.

It is an interesting juxtaposition, the hushed, hyper-talented experts whose job it is to get used to finding a volume of 40 possible future Sox players contrasted with the individual people whose names are being called for the first or second time, sending ripples of "I knew him when" throughout their past and present. The process is life-changing, quite often for both groups.

• Jason Benetti is a play-by-play broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox, as well as ESPN. Follow him on Twitter @jasonbenetti.