{"id":1902,"date":"2009-11-17T11:34:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T17:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/?p=1902"},"modified":"2009-11-17T11:35:32","modified_gmt":"2009-11-17T17:35:32","slug":"weep-not-for-gordon-beckham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/1902\/weep-not-for-gordon-beckham","title":{"rendered":"Weep Not For Gordon Beckham"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the hand-wringing<\/a> and woe-is-the-whole-damn-system bemoaning<\/a> continue in the wake of Gordon Beckham’s fifth-place finish in this year’s Rookie of the Year voting, this seems a fine time to ask a very simple yet very necessary question:<\/p>\n

Who cares?<\/p>\n

Okay, he could’ve finished higher and okay, most voters didn’t see the same kind of ballplayingness and grindability that helped us forget about Josh Fields and Joe Crede in a hurry. But beyond all the complaining about how he was robbed of something he was never promised and whatever weird sense of entitlement we take in a stranger’s career, what possible reason could any of us, including the man himself, have to get worked up about this?<\/p>\n

The answer, as you may suspect, is “none.” Consider:<\/p>\n

Gordon Beckham has made $3 million playing baseball before the age of 23.<\/strong> A game, and a child’s game at that. Many people working significantly more intense and important jobs will have no such security and much less to show for their efforts. He will survive.<\/p>\n

Geovany Soto, Bobby Crosby, Scott Williamson, Dontrelle Willis, Kerry Wood, Ben Grieve, Marty Cordova, Bob Hamelin, Jerome Walton, Chris Sabo.<\/strong> Ten men, ten Rookie of the Year awards. And look where it got them.<\/p>\n

Dustin Pedroia, Albert Pujols, Ichiro Suzuki, Ryan Howard, Carlos Beltran, Nomar Garciaparra, Scott Rolen, Derek Jeter, Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell.<\/strong> Ten more men, ten more Rookie of the Year awards. Ask them, in the scheme of things, where that achievement ranks.<\/p>\n

Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey, Jr., Manny Ramirez, Frank Thomas, CC Sabathia, Roy Halladay, Jim Thome, Vlad Guerrero, Chase Utley, Mark Teixeira.<\/strong> No Rookies of the Year in there. Not a one. In the long run, this seems not to have hampered their careers.<\/p>\n

Quick, name one non-White Sox also-ran in recent Rookie of the Year voting.<\/strong> Because you can’t. And neither can I! Because either you won or you didn’t, and that’s all most people remember. Or should remember, for that matter.<\/p>\n

Don’t forget, he had a terrible August and an average September.<\/strong> So we’re really looking at a better candidate for American League Rookie of Just Two Months. But don’t tell Hawk! Because I look forward to hearing this whole episode is all just B.S.<\/p>\n

All things considered, who really cares what sportswriters think?<\/strong> Hint: it rhymes with “portswriters.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So he finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting. So what?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[198,35,194,597,260,325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1902"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1907,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1902\/revisions\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}