Say Hello to Gordon Beckham

Were you to attend Wednesday night's White Sox winner over the rays at U.S. Cellular Field, you would have seen all the standards -- those escalators, the food stands, the roaming beer vendors in bright florescent yellow. The Cell experience, as it were.

But if you were paying much attention, you also would have noticed something new. Everywhere you looked -- whether in the few seats in front of you or on the concourse or in the apparel trucks -- you would have seen Gordon Beckham jerseys. If Beckham's shirt isn't yet the most popular Sox t-shirt jersey on the South Side, it's getting close. And for good reason.

Beckham was the Sox's big-deal prospect this season, and he didn't take his time arriving in the major leagues. But his first few weeks in the big leagues were less than impressive. His first 12 at-bats were hitless, which he eventually stretched to 1-17. A turning point came in the Cubs-Sox interleague series, when Beckham hit a game-winning single off Carlos Marmol and was mobbed by teammates at second base.

Since then, Beckham has been crushing the ball. His splits for the month of July are insane: .339/.391/.516, and his past week or so has been even more impressive. Whatever troubles Beckham had his first few weeks appear to be gone, and while he might not be a career .340 hitter -- this is a small sample size, after all, and Beckham's batting average on balls in play (.370) has been very kind -- he can clearly hit the ball and field his position and do all of the things the White Sox expected of him when they drafted him last season.

Those aren't the only reasons Beckham is already popular, though. The kid (we just naturally assume his teammates call him "the kid," because baseball players do stuff like that) is naturally charismatic. His hair is perfectly coiffed. His jaw is square. At the risk of sounding like a creepy old baseball scout, he looks like a baseball player. (The first impression we got when we heard Beckham speak to reporters was that he should consider running for office some day.) When you throw in his goofy batting circle song -- "Your Love" by The Outfield, a bar singalong song if ever there was one -- you've got a player who hasn't really had to work all that hard to be liked. He just is.

The crazy thing is that Beckham's only 22. How good he'll eventually be is still up for debate. His popularity will be far less debatable.

Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter.

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