White Sox player visits Wilmette school before Spring Training
BY KATHY ROUTLIFFE kroutliffe@pioneerlocal.com February 21, 2012 9:42PM
Highcrest student Kate Sawdey gets a baseball autographed by White Sox player Gordon Beckham last week. Beckham toured classrooms, answered questions and signed autographs during his visit with students. | Joe Cyganowski~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 24, 2012 8:40AM
Sometimes winning first prize can be a dream come true. And sometimes having a dream come true can leave you tongue-tied and star-struck. Take Eli Lieberman, for example.
The fifth grade student at Wilmette’s Highcrest Middle School was a portrait of smiles and near-silent hero worship last Friday, when Chicago White Sox second-basemen Gordon Beckham visited him for the day.
“He isn’t a shy kid, not normally,” said Eli’s mom, Karen Berman. “He loves baseball and he can tell you the stats of everyone on (the Sox). But it’s not every day something like this happens.”
In Eli’s case, “something like this” meant winning a contest in which the first prize was having a Chicago White Sox player spend the day with him at school.
Eli learned late last year that he had won the sweepstakes contest. At first Eli nor his mom were quite sure the Pepsi company-sponsored contest news was real, Karen said.
Still, Eli came to school Feb. 17 well prepared: Dressed in his Sox cap and jersey — he’s a near life-long Sox fan like his dad, David — and a sack of items destined for autographs.
But it was Beckham’s casual “What’s up, buddy? Are you my guy?” as he walked into the tiny room where Eli was waiting that turned first prize into reality. And if Eli had difficulty getting much more than one sentence out at a time, even when coaxed by a very affable Beckham, the wide grin he sported throughout the morning more than made up for it.
“What? Are you nervous? Don’t be nervous,” the Atlanta-born White Sox said. The Sox player ably took up the conversational slack, while coaxing some information from his young host on issues like girlfriends and sports other than baseball. Eli “kinda sorta” has a girlfriend and plays some basketball, which Beckham doesn’t.
Being star-struck didn’t completely hamstring Eli’s conversational skills. At one point, when Beckham asked him about his youth baseball tryouts, the two got into an earnest discussion about traveling leagues. A few minutes later, talk turned to pitches: fastballs, change-ups and the vagaries of the breaking ball.
After learning that Eli was a right-hander, and that he pitched a fastball, Beckham advised him, “you’ve got to be careful about pitching anything else, like breaking balls, because you can hurt your arm if you do it too young.”
Beckham picked up one of a pile of recently autographed baseballs, and showed Eli where he should place his fingers to make a good pitch, especially a good forkball. The two put their heads together and all traces of Eli’s abashed hero worship disappeared; they were just two ball players working on technique.
The day continued with giving Beckham a mini-tour of Highcrest en route to an auditorium Q&A session with other fifth grade students. The tour included an unplanned stop outside a volleyball gym, when one of the youngsters playing inside turned his head, spotted Beckham and announced the discovery at the top of his voice: “Hey! It’s Gordon Beckham, you guys! You rock, dude!” A gym full of boys and girls promptly exploded into the hallway, surrounding Beckham for at least five minutes.
Once extracted from that gleeful bedlam, it was on to the auditorium, where Beckham earnestly advised his listeners to “work hard, study hard and mold yourself into what you want to be some day” before answering questions.
He diplomatically dodged some surprisingly sophisticated queries about former Sox manager Ozzie Guillen; told the audience that he hung out with fellow Sox star Paul Konerko; that his own dad inspired him; admitted he didn’t like playing the “choppy field” at Wrigley during cross-town bouts. He told students he hunted and fished for fun, and told them he didn’t watch himself on TV, except when watching film for training purposes.
After that, Beckham visited Eli’s classroom, which was lavishly decorated in Sox-themed black and white streamers, taking more questions and signing autographs for his classmates.
Through it all, Eli smiled. After all, you don’t need to say a whole lot when you’ve won first prize.
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