Let's not rush to judgment on Beckham
What's the hurry?
White Sox fans want to quickly ordain Gordon Beckham their second baseman or shortstop, leadoff man or cleanup hitter, president-elect or presumptive pope.
Relax, folks. Beckham's immediate Sox future doesn't have to be determined immediately.
My personal hunch is that Beckham needs most or all of the 2009 season in the minor leagues. He could use more than the half-hour he spent down there last year.
However, March is fluid. Beckham still has time this month to go from hotshot to no shot to sure shot to completely shot to Comiskey Park.
Of course, that's just my ambivalence talking. Despite being bound by deadlines my entire adult life, I'm essentially a professional procrastinator.
Just last week it took me so long to pick between "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" that I wound up at some French flick with Vietnamese subtitles.
Back to Beckham: Let's let the sand settle in the desert before deciding whether he belongs in the major leagues.
The media down in Arizona - perhaps hoping to meet a Spice Girl - are treating the Sox rookie as if he were a celebrity the magnitude of another Beckham.
The beauty of exhibition baseball is we see what we want to see. John Danks stinks it up? No big deal. Gordon Beckham lights it up? Really big deal.
I covered something like 20 straight Sox and Cubs spring trainings and Beckhamania reinforces my recollection that if only the news was reported down there, nothing would be left to report the other six days of the week.
Legend has it that one legendary newspaper sports columnist legendarily said way back in the 1970s, "When they figure out a new way to practice, I'll go watch them."
My goodness, spring training this year is so long it seems to be spanning Beckham's entire career - heck, his entire 23-year life.
With Opening Day still most of a month off, Sox general manager Kenny Williams and field manager Ozzie Guillen don't have to decide Beckham's fate for a while.
They can weigh his merits against the competition for a roster spot, his youth against his inexperience, his future against their present.
Williams and Guillen have been around long enough to have seen sizzle turn to fizzle and phenom turn to phoo-phah. All teams have March prospects that come in like lions and leave like lambs.
What ultimately gets most shooting-star sluggers is the numbers game.
They begin the exhibition schedule hitting line drives off pitchers on their way to the minor leagues wearing numbers in the 80s, 70s and 60s.
As April approaches, they begin struggling against pitchers with 50s, 40s and 30s on their backs.
How will Beckham hold up? That's the question the next three-plus weeks will answer.
In the meantime I have no definitive opinion except that like most mortals, Beckham would need to be immortal to deserve a White Sox roster spot this soon.
Then again if Beckham still is demonstrating on April Fool's Day that he's no joke - well, the issue of whether his future is now will evolve from "why?" to "why not?"
However, right now there's no hurry, so I'll spend this afternoon wavering between surf and turf for dinner.
mimrem@dailyherald.com