Can the Dodgers match the ’05 White Sox postseason accomplishments?

Can 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers ...

Now that we know there’s going to be a Houston Astros/Los Angeles Dodgers matchup come the World Series beginning Tuesday, I can’t help but be reminded of that magical moments of 2005 when it was the Chicago White Sox who managed to “win it all” that autumn.

... match '05 Sox postseason mark?

What was notable about the White Sox’ bid for league and overall championships was that, come playoff time, they became virtually unbeatable.

THE WHITE SOX won the first round of American League playoffs with a three-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox (with Orlando Hernandez making one of the greatest relief pitching performances I’ve ever seen), then lost only one game in the final round of league playoffs.

Then came their four-game sweep of the World Series proper – as they beat the then-National League Houston Astros (watching the Saturday night playoff game against New York at Houston’s Minute Maid Park, I couldn’t help but remember that extra inning home run by Geoff Blum that was a significant part of the White Sox’ ultimate victory all those years ago).

Now why is any of this particularly relevant as we go into the 2017 World Series – one that sees the now-American League Houston Astros try to win their first World Series title ever?

Chicago native Granderson to play in Series

It’s because of the Dodgers – the team that for awhile this season flirted with the notion of setting a new record for the most wins (116) in a regular season; and wound up actually winning 104, which is still very impressive.

FOR THE DODGERS are the team who this year went through the first round of National League playoffs with a three-game sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks, then went through the final round of National League playoffs by losing only one game to the Chicago Cubs.

Could it be that the 2017 Dodgers ball club will match the White Sox’ postseason achievement of an 11-1 record, which puts that team in some fairly historic categories.

Blum provided heroic moment in Houston

It’s comparable to the 1998 New York Yankees, who had a three-game sweep in the first round of playoffs, then a four games-to-two victory in the final round, then a four-game sweep of the World Series that year against the San Diego Padres (who nearly two decades later have yet to return to the “fall classic”).

Some say the 1976 Cincinnati Reds deserve recognition because they went through the whole of playoffs and World Series without losing a game. But back then, there was only one round of league playoffs prior to the World Series.

THEIR 7-0 RECORD in beating the Philadelphia Phillies, then the New York Yankees, isn’t quite comparable to what the ’98 Yankees or the ’05 White Sox did. Or what this year’s Los Angeles Dodgers manage to do – if they can pull off a four-game sweep of the World Series beginning Tuesday against Houston.

Just what are the chances of that happening? Is this year’s Dodger team going to be the historic element of the 2017 baseball season? Or is it going to be the notion of Houston becoming the first ball club to ever win championships for both the National and American leagues (which they were transferred to back in 2013, after having been in the “senior circuit” since the 1962 expansion)?

Honestly, I’m an American League fan who feels like the real American League teams all got knocked out of the running – and this year’s World Series will be the equivalent of a mid-season 1970s regular season ballgame of the old National League West.

So in that regard, I almost wouldn’t mind it if the Dodgers were able to pull off not only a victory – but a four-game sweep. It would provide an element of history to what otherwise would be remembered as the Yankees/Dodgers World Series that failed to come to be. Besides, since the Astros this year have shown they don’t really win on the road, the Dodgers (who have home field advantage) will have to be the favorite.

BESIDES, IF A four-game sweep were to become the end result – it means the baseball historians would have to delve into the records of the past to recall all the other ballclubs that suddenly became so dominant come October.

It means we’d have to give a plug to the first ball club from Chicago to take a World Series title in this century.

Which I think would be ironic since the fans of the Cubbie blue were convinced until just a few days ago that ’17 was intended to be “their year” to make some history – and certainly not a time for remembering the city’s “other” ball club.

So as I watch this week’s World Series action, I’ll admit that a key day will be Thursday. While many will think of it merely as a travel day from Los Angeles to Houston, I'll be remembering that moment of 12 years earlier at the same ballpark when White Sox shortstop Juan Uribe fielded that ground ball up the middle, then threw to first base for the final out that finally ended the White Sox’, and Chicago’s baseball championship drought.

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Cubbies create nothing but a yawn from me, but White Sox offer no guarantees

I am a life-long Chicagoan interested in baseball who must confess that the presence of the Chicago Cubs in the 2017 baseball playoffs trying to get themselves a second-consecutive World Series berth leaves me emotionally flat.

Chicago baseball fans debate ...

I honestly could care less what the Cubs do this year. And not just because my interest in the local baseball scene focuses on the chances that the Chicago White Sox’ rebuild, with an intense “Cubano revolution,” will result in success.

BECAUSE OF THE White Sox interest, I’m an American League fan – one whom I must admit as a kid enjoyed the New York Yankees ballclubs of the mid-1970s and still remembers that two of their preeminent ballplayers were former White Sox Bucky Dent and Rich Gossage.

... which World Series relevant

I went into this year’s baseball playoffs focusing attention on the Cleveland/New York matchup, figuring that I’d wind up rooting for whichever team prevailed in that early round to go all the way to win the American League championship – then the World Series.

As for the National League? I check the box scores , but really don’t care which team wins. I only want them to ultimately lose to the American League champions.

If there is Yankee success in '17,...

I only saw the last two innings of that final Chicago/Washington playoff game – and will always believe the Cubs were downright lucky to get that 8^th inning pickoff play ruled in their favor because it put to rest the rally that WOULD HAVE resulted in a Washington victory (and the Cubbie faithful crying in their beers).

BUT REALLY, I’M not rooting against the Cubs at this stage of the playoffs Eventually I’ll root for either New York or Houston to beat up on either Los Angeles or the baby blue Bruins of the North Side – whichever prevails this week.

... it could be due to a trio ...

The part of me that roots for the White Sox during the regular season almost wouldn’t mind a Houston/Chicago matchup. It would be downright funny if the Astros – who only once in their history ever made it to the World Series; losing to the White Sox of 2005 before transferring leagues in 2013 – beat up on the Cubs!

White Sox fans mostly are apathetic about the playoffs (even though Cubbie faithful is deluded enough to think the whole world is obligated to root for their ball club), but would get a kick out of history recording the Houston Astros losing to their team, while beating the Cubs.

... of ballplayers with Chicago ties

Not all of Chicago is getting all worked up over Cubbie-mania. There are those of us with real lives, and those of us who are still living off the memories of that aforementioned ’05 World Series victory that was the first for a Chicago ball club in this century

JUST AS REGARDLESS of what happens with the Cubs against the Dodgers this week, Cubs fans will still have their memories of 2016 how they nearly blew a Game 7 lead to the Cleveland Indians, but managed to win in extra innings.

If Jose Lobaton hadn't been picked off ...

It’s the inherent character of Chicago baseball that fans have their team to root for – and the other might as well not exist.

The only way we’d ever get Chicago united over a post-season round of baseball playoffs is if we were to ever get the proper circumstances for an all-Chicago World Series.

Which is the goal of the White Sox re-build, to put their ball club in contention for a World Series berth at the same time that the Cubs may still have ballclubs in contention. That would be a circumstance that would create memories Chicagoans would talk about for the rest of their lives. Which when you consider how young some baseball fans are these days could easily stretch to the final days of the 21^st Century.

... it's likely the 'L' flag would be flying in the minds of Cubs fans

OF COURSE, THERE’S there’s always the problem that there are no guarantees in baseball – just like there’s no crying (remember the film "A League of their Own?"). Nobody knows just how the baseball season will play out until the ballgames are actually played.

It was just a couple of years ago the Pittsburgh Pirates had contending teams that were supposedly going to end decades of losing. Yet they haven’t won a thing – and their window of opportunity may now be over. Similar to those Seattle Mariners teams of the late 1990s to early 2000s – including the 2001 team that still has a record for the most wins in a season, but no league championship or World Series title to show for it. There also are many American League teams throughout the years that represented Boston, Chicago or Cleveland -- to name just a few examples of teams that came so close to winning it all.

A revival in Chicago?

Or maybe the story of coming years will be the resurgence of the Yankees (who haven’t won a World Series since 2009). What if the Yankees were to beat the Cubs in this year’s World Series, and have continued success that prevented the White Sox from winning a World Series birth in the near future?

Could the “Damned Yankees” be the uniting factor for both sides of Chicago baseball in years to come!

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Black Monday? So in character for Chicago baseball on both sides of town

Call it incredibly frustrating. But learning that the Chicago White Sox managed to pull off an 11-0 blowout of the Cleveland Indians Monday night was possibly even more annoying than any of the losses in the 2-10 stretch (2-5 during the last week of home games) the ballclub did in recent weeks that took them out of the pennant race.

'Comeback player' the best Sox can hope for?



Wouldn’t you know it that once it no longer matters, the White Sox would regain their hitting stroke.

I SAY ‘NO longer matters’ because it doesn’t. The Detroit Tigers were at the point where all they needed was one more win this season on their part, and they would clinch an American League division title and a spot in the playoffs.

They got that victory Monday night, beating the Kansas City Royals 6-3. It’s over. The White Sox who held onto first place for so much of the 2012 season (even though so many people were convinced this would be a historically awful ballclub) are now mathematically eliminated from contention.

History will record them as a second place ballclub in 2012, and one whose players get to watch the playoffs on television instead of from the dugout, while slugger Adam Dunn gets to wonder if his 40-plus home runs this season are good enough to win him Comeback Player of the Year honors.

But it wasn’t just the White Sox who managed to accomplish something on Monday.

LET’S HEAR IT for the Chicago Cubs, who on the same day that the White Sox were knocked out of contention managed to achieve their own “goal” for the season – they lost their 100^th ballgame.

Diamond in dung-heap of Cubs' '12 season?

And they managed to do it to the one team that may be worse than the baby bears – the Houston Astros already had 106 losses going into their final three games of the season being played at Wrigley Field.

So no contender for the Sox, all those losses for the Cubs, and a whole lot of misery for those of us with any interest in watching a contender on the playing field.

Although I suppose none of this should be surprising.

AFTER THE AWFUL season the White Sox managed to put out during 2011, there were many people who were convinced that it would happen again – which is what drove down the season ticket sales that made the White Sox all-the-more reliant on walkups to the ticket window.

And anytime that happens, you become reliant on quirks such as weather and timing. So many things can drive down attendance – which is why the White Sox fell just short of the 2 million mark in tickets sold (1,965,505, for those who have an anal-retentive attention to detail) this season.

Which is about 1 million short of what the Chicago Cubs are likely to draw by the time their home games are complete come Wednesday.

Which makes me wonder if Theo Epstein is still gleeful about his professional prospects of revitalizing this Cubs franchise. He knew he didn’t have a contender, but I doubt he realized he had a historically-awful ballclub.

THAT’S WHAT 100 losses means, although I’m sure those in Cubbie fandom will take their solace in the fact that they won’t have to put up with White Sox gloating over having a playoff-bound ballclub.

In fact, about the only happy person in White Sox-land these days is general manager Ken Williams (whom some reports say will be “bumped up” to another administrative post so that long-time deputy Rick Hahn can be general manager).

Nice 'digs' for one-time utility outfielder



Crain’s Chicago Business used its website to report that the ballclub gave Williams a $2.15 million loan so he could buy a century-old luxury home in the Gold Coast neighborhood. It seems Kenny is confident he’s still employed – even if his ballclub did flop in the end.

Although the real story these days may well be at Wrigley Field, where the Astros are playing their final ballgames as a National League team. In a touch of irony, Houston played their first games in the National League back in 1962 against the Cubs – whose “College of Coaches”-led ball clubs were as bad as this year’s version.

IN A RESTRUCTURING of the leagues, Houston is moving to the American League, where officials hope they will become a vicious rival of the Dallas-Fort Worth-area team, the Texas Rangers.

I don’t know about that happening. But it does remind me of that moment nearly 4 decades ago when Ron Santo joined the White Sox following a career with the Cubs in the National League.

On Opening Day, he was greeted by the Comiskey Park faithful with a banner reading, “Welcome to the major leagues.”

So as an American League fan, I say “Welcome!” to the Astros, who may well be the one ballclub that had wackier scoreboard antics at the Astrodome than those of the old Comiskey Park.

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