Manager Ozzie Guillen and general manager Ken Williams were sitting in a golf cart watching some of their prospects take infield practice.
Judging from their reaction, they may have been watching the future left side of the White Sox infield.
Guillen said he loved watching shortstop Pedro Lopez and third baseman Josh Fields take ground balls and it’s possible, in the not-too-distant future, both of them, along with Brian Anderson and Ryan Sweeney, could be the building blocks of the Sox’s next generation.
In the case of Fields, Williams said fans may wonder why the Sox don’t bring their first-round pick in last June’s draft to Chicago right away.
All that is heady stuff for Fields, who still has a “do I belong here?” look.
“I’m a younger guy and all the game experience and everything that these guys have, I lack that,” Fields said. “I’m just trying to talk to them and hang around them and learn.”
The Sox are hoping Fields turns out to be like another first-round pick from Oklahoma State–Robin Ventura.
The similarities are there. Both are 6 feet 1 inch, with Fields being slightly heavier at 215 pounds to Ventura’s 198. Both were high draft choices–Ventura the 10th pick in the 1988 draft, Fields the 18th pick.
It took Ventura just two years to become the regular third baseman, playing 150 games in the 1990 season at age 22.
After spending his first year of professional baseball at Class-A Winston-Salem, Fields, 22, is expected to begin this season in Double-A Birmingham.
In 66 games last season, Fields hit .285 with seven home runs and 39 RBIs. Baseball America rates him as the best power hitter in the organization and the club’s fourth-best prospect.
“Fields is going to be a great player,” Guillen said Thursday before the Sox’s 7-2 victory over Texas in Surprise, Ariz. “He’s going to have to work a little bit more on his defense. He’s still raw. He’s a baby on the baseball field. He has a tremendous opportunity to be on the baseball field pretty soon.”
Fields hit into an inning-ending double play Thursday and is batting .250 (3-for-12) in seven games.
Third base long had been a wasteland in the Sox infield before the drafting of Ventura. The Sox even tried Williams, a converted outfielder, at third in 1988 and Carlos Martinez in 1989 before Ventura took the clear opening for a rapid rise.
Joe Crede is the incumbent now, but his inconsistency may crack the door for Fields if he has a strong season in Birmingham. Crede being arbitration eligible in 2006 with Sox nemesis Scott Boras as his agent doesn’t hurt Fields’ chance for a quick promotion either.
Fields was a standout quarterback at Oklahoma State, which is fitting for a Sox team that also can hold its own in a flag football tournament.
Fields threw for more than 5,500 yards with 52 touchdowns in two seasons as the Cowboys’ quarterback. He threw for seven touchdowns against SMU in 2003 and six against Kansas in 2002.
But for Fields, the decision to pursue baseball and pass up his senior year of football was an easy one.
“My dad was a pitcher in college and a high school baseball coach, so I was always around it and liked it,” Fields said. “You get a better feeling being in the clubhouse and out on the field in baseball. In football, everything is tense.”
Fields used his football scholarship to pay for his schooling and admitted the football staff wasn’t thrilled with his desire to play baseball as well. They didn’t make things easy on him in his freshman season.
“At first I think they thought I would see how hard it was [to play two sports] and drop one of them,” Fields said. “I’ve never quit anything and I think it showed them something when I stuck it out.”
Fields said his first two years were grueling. He would play a baseball game in the afternoon, then attend football practices and meetings in the evenings–not to mention those pesky college classes as well.
“All that was stressful,” Fields said.
The football coaches let up on Fields a bit after his sophomore season and there was a point where Fields was told by scouts and his coaches that he might be able to make the NFL.
“That entered my mind, [but] I knew where my first love was and that was the baseball field,” Fields said. “No matter how much success you have in one sport, you have to go with what you like doing and this is it.”
If Fields turns out like the last third baseman they took from Oklahoma State, Sox fans will be very happy he chose his first love.
