The Yawn of a New Era: sleepless Beckham debuts

You know when you're lying in bed, you have a 7:13 a.m. flight the next day and you struggle to doze off because you're so cognizant of sleep time slipping away?

Now, try being in that situation shortly after being told you're headed to the big leagues.

Yeah, Gordon Beckham had no chance to catch Zs during what he hopes were his final hours in Charlotte, N.C.

"I got into bed (Wednesday) night and turned the TV off and sat there for 20 minutes and that was about it," Beckham said. "I turned the TV back on and said there's no way I'm sleeping, I'm not even trying to do this."

Yet Beckham showed up at U.S. Cellular on Thursday morning with surprisingly clear eyes, a handful of bats he boxed himself, the No. 8 spot in the White Sox batting order, and a black No. 15 jersey hanging in his locker.

The 22-year-old third baseman didn't, however, have a nameplate above his cubicle, which has been squeezed between second baseman Chris Getz and reliever D.J. Carrasco.

That might be a sign of how hurriedly the Sox brass decided they needed the 2008 first-round pick in the bigs.

Between Josh Fields' flaccid bat and Wilson Betemit's faulty fielding, Williams and his staff saw the chance for an immediate upgrade once Beckham treated Triple-A pitchers even more rudely than their Double-A counterparts.

In 7 games at Class AAA Charlotte, Beckham batted .464 with 6 doubles in just 29 plate appearances.

"This isn't by no means an indication we're giving up on Josh," Williams said. "But you guys understand we're all about winning here, and if there's a chink in our armor, we got to fix it. And there's a little bit of a chink in our armor in that area.

"And we're not done in terms of trying to evolve into a club that can win this division and keep winning divisions and hopefully win another World Series. You got to start down a road that we've started to do it."

Beckham's debut on Thursday didn't exactly reorient the White Sox wagon back toward immortality, even if several fans gave him a standing ovation before his first at-bat and others waved homemade signs with messages such as "WRECK 'EM LIKE BECKHAM."

The Atlanta native went 0-for-3 with a strikeout (he wasn't close to Oakland starter Brett Anderson's 77 m.p.h. curveball in the seventh) and gloved just one ball in the field as the Athletics kept smashing hits beyond his diving reach.

To commemorate his first day in the bigs, the Sox placed Ozzie Guillen's official lineup card (with the masking tape still attached) in his locker after the game.

If that's the only souvenir that comes from Beckham's career, everyone in the White Sox organization will be stunned - perhaps no one more than Beckham.

It doesn't seem possible to burst his bubble even if he goes 0-fer every day for a week. And Guillen does plan to use Beckham almost every day, mostly at third with cameo appearances at second and short.

"He's cocky," Guillen said. "I like that. He's very cocky. He's not cocky to be a hot dog. He just knows what he's doing. He knows he's good and that's going to help him."

Beckham has his own view of cockiness vs. confidence as well.

"I've told some of these guys before that there's a fine line between cockiness and confidence," Beckham said. "I try to skate that line on the confidence side, obviously, and you have to be confident for this game.

"It's a mental game and if you are not confident, it will be tough to be a good player for more than a couple of weeks."