Let the legend of Gordon Beckham grow. Beckham hit a three run walk-off home run to beat Georgia State in extra innings (correction: it was the bottom of the ninth) Wednesday night. He currently leads the NCAA in home runs and total bases. He's in the top 20 for average, hits, on base percentage, runs, and slugging percentage. In short, he is having the best offensive season Athens has ever seen. At this pace, Beckham will either fell a cedar tree in the outfield or permanently disable someone on Kudzu Hill.He's already been named the Midseason Player of the Year by Baseball America and Rivals.com. So, my question is can Beckham win the Golden Spikes award? The Golden Spikes is the equivalent of the Heisman Trophy, without the politics and incessant hype. UGA's never had a Golden Spikes winner and if Beckham wins it, he'd join guys like Will Clark, Bob Horner, J.D. Drew, and Mark Prior as past winners. With his gaudy stats and the team playing well, Beckham has to be considered the frontrunner.
There are five SEC weekend series to go and the Dawgs currently lead the conference by three games. As the postseason approaches, Rivals.com has already projected the 64 team field for the race to Omaha. They've got the Dawgs hosting a regional, but not slotted as one of the eight national seeds. Obviously, we're a long way from the start of NCAAs, but we're playing inspired baseball right now. If we win the SEC East, Georgia is almost assured of hosting a regional, but they need to keep winning two out of three on the weekends and show up for the midweek games to get a national seed.
Quinton
