When his telephone rang back in November, it was the random-drawing equivalent of a home run: Eli Lieberman had been picked to host a Chicago White Sox player at his middle school for a day.

He almost didn’t believe it.

“We just thought it was a scam,” said the Wilmette fifth-grader.

But on Feb. 17, second baseman Gordon Beckham was standing beside him at Highcrest Middle School, giving the youngster a fist-bump. (Photos: Back with the minors)

Eli, 11, said he was a Cubs fan like his dad, “when I was little.” But then the White Sox won the World Series in 2005.

“That was the first year I started (seriously) watching baseball,” Eli said. He’s been a Sox fan ever since.

Eli’s mother, Karen Berman, remembers returning a telephone call to a Pepsi company representative to confirm whether her son’s prize was real. It was. Then she telephoned her son.

“I could feel the smile over the phone,” she said of that call.

Eli is a self-described “huge” White Sox fan, and a pitcher/first-baseman for his Little League team.

At school Feb. 17, he wore his Sox cap and jersey to meet Beckham, who joined the team in 2009.

“You’re my guy today. You’re going to take me around school?” Beckham asked the youngster, before signing some baseballs and teaching him how to hold a curveball and a “circle change” pitch.

“I was a really good pitcher, back in the day,” Beckham said, instructing Eli how to grip the ball and telling him to “throw it like you’re pulling a window shade down.”

After a conversation with the Beckham, Eli lead the 25-year-old big-leaguer through Highcrest Middle School. Outside one of the school’s gymnasiums, where a class was playing volleyball, a student saw Beckham through a window. His jaw dropped, he pointed his finger and yelled, “Gordon Beckham!” Within minutes the volleyball games had stopped and the students had poured into the hallway to give the second-baseman high-fives.

Later, Beckham and Eli sat on the edge of the stage in the school’s auditorium, where Beckham told the children to “work hard, study hard and mold yourself into what you want to be someday. It starts now,” he said. “If you have a dream, chase it.”

Beckham let Eli call on the students whose hands were raised to ask questions:

•  His best friend on the White Sox: Paul Konerko
•  His favorite Cubs player: Marlon Byrd (last year) or David DeJesus (this year)
•  His favorite player growing up: Derek Jeter
• What Beckham would be doing if he wasn’t playing baseball: Something real estate or insurance related
• His thoughts on Wrigley Field: “The infield is terrible. It’s really choppy,” Beckham said. The locker room, too, he described as “terrible”
• On appearing in a baseball video game: “I used to always want to be on a video game. Since I’ve gotten there, I’ve never played with myself or the White Sox.”
• His favorite food: Steak and baked potato. “I grill it.”
• Hobbies: Hunting and fishing
• His favorite movie: “Forrest Gump”

In the classroom later, Eli and his peers were given White Sox gear, and Beckham signed more autographs. As Eli basked in the moment, his mother stood at the back of the classroom, still amazed that the telephone call back in November was real.

“It’s fun to win anything,” Berman said. “But this is a significant thing.”

Back with the minors