Happy Father's Day

I cut White Sox infielder Gordon Beckham a lot of slack for two reasons—he plays with a golden glove and Clare has always been sweet on him.  She has a picture somewhere of the two of them I took at a fan convention several years ago.

Along with that incredible hair, I think Clare was drawn to a fellow infielder (though when Clare went to college, she was shifted to the outfield.  Go figure).  A natural shortstop, Beckham can play anywhere on the left side of the infield with equal grace.  He came close to winning a Gold Glove at second in 2012 and plays an obscenely good third.  The man is all soft hands, strong arm and one-step quickness.  Just don’t put a bat in his hands.

Beckham did fine his rookie season of 2009, batting .270 with 63 rbi’s in just 378 at-bats; nothing since has come close.  When he’s good, Beckham has a nice short swing, and he can shoot doubles into either power alley, but when he’s bad, his swing gets loopy, and he accumulates way too many popups and strikeouts.  For whatever reason, Gordon has gotten a little loopier with each passing season.  It reached the point last year the Sox traded their onetime phenom to the Angels.  Then the Halos released him in the offseason, and we signed him to a one-year deal as a utility player.

For a while, it looked like Beckham had achieved Willie Bloomquist, super-sub status, but then the loopiness returned about a month ago.  I was watching the game yesterday with my father-in-law, when he mentioned that someone had given him a Beckham tee-shirt.  “Burn it,” I advised.  “He’s all field, no hit.”  No sooner had I said that then Beckham turned a sparkling home-to-first double play in the top of the eleventh inning with the bases loaded against the Rangers.  And you know the old saying, How often does a player make a great play in the top of the inning only to lead off the bottom?

At which point, Gordon Beckham took the first pitch he saw and deposited it over the fence in left for a walk-off home run; on Mother’s Day, Beckham had a walk-off single against the Reds.  It’s enough to give one hope, and ignore a .220 batting average going into the first week of summer.