Knowing with a half hour to go before Saturday’s non-waiver trade deadline that hopes for adding one final piece were lost, general manager Ken Williams decided to have a little fun.

Williams grabbed Gordon Beckham out of the players’ food room, took him into Ozzie Guillen’s office and shut the door. Guillen was called into the office as well.

With the pulse rate of both Beckham and Guillen rising, Williams complimented his young infielder on a quality at-bat from Friday night’s game and then told him he could go. Williams’ practical joke went off without a hitch.

Beckham breathed a sigh of relief, Guillen showered Williams with expletives and the White Sox’s roster was set at the deadline.

“I kind of thought I was going somewhere,” Beckham said. “I wasn’t nervous. Knowing what I knew earlier in the week (when he was told he wouldn’t be traded), I was like, ‘What’s going on here? It was a little bit of a jumpstart to my day I guess.”

The joke was unwittingly set up by Paul Konerko, who had just been talking to Beckham.

“Konerko said, ‘You won’t believe this but one minute before you walked in, I told Gordon that this is about the time in the show where Kenny Williams says the hell with it I’ll give you Gordon Beckham,’” Williams said. “It was perfect timing. We had a little fun. It’s anything you can do when you’re playing well and have the intensity around you to lighten the moods up a little bit. It helps things.”

Williams admitted that with the long days leading into the deadline he was going to watch Saturday night’s game from his couch.