White Sox get it done in stretch
HOUSTON – The White Sox poured out of the dugout and raced in from the field to meet at the pitcher’s mound, hopping, hugging and whooping with joy.
That 88-year wait between championships? At last, it’s over.
The White Sox are World Series champions, and the celebration stretched from a mass of flag-waving Chicago fans behind the dugout at Minute Maid Park to the delirious streets of the South Side.
Sweeping white flags emblazoned with “Sox” through the air, the fans in Houston stomped and sang songs, looking almost like a visiting soccer crowd.
On the field, Geoff Blum, the hero of Game 3, carried his daughter and posed for pictures.
Wednesday night’s 1-0 win over the Houston Astros completed a remarkable run through October and gave the franchise its first World Series title since 1917.
This was a team that was ever so close to letting a 15-game slip away late in the season, only to regroup and play its best baseball at the perfect time.
The White Sox won 16 of their final 17 games, starting with the final five games of the regular season. They swept the 2004 champion Boston Red Sox out of the first round, handled the Los Angeles Angels in five games in the ALCS and then swept away the Astros, as well.
As they have all season, the White Sox relied on contributions from a variety of sources.
Former Seattle Mariners ace Freddy Garcia won his third game of the playoffs and pitched his third clincher of the late run.
Burly rookie Bobby Jenks, the 270-pound closer who is a former Spirit Lake, Idaho, resident, survived a shaky situation in the ninth when the Astros got a runner on second with one out to get his second save of the series. Talk about pressure: He pitched in all four games – not bad for a 24-year-old who didn’t make his major league debut until July.
Manager Ozzie Guillen, in just his second season, has done what so many before him could not.
Guillen has threatened to retire if the White Sox win, and who knows what the quotable and talkative manager will do next.
It would be difficult to top what he’s already accomplished.