The world champions of small ball and all ball, your Chicago White Sox.
The Sox presented the city with its first World Series title in 88 years Wednesday night, and they needed just one measly run to do it.
Jermaine Dye’s third hit of the night scored Willie Harris with the only run of the game as the Sox completed a stunning four-game sweep of the Houston Astros with a taut 1-0 victory.
Let the celebration commence from Bourbonnais to Barrington and all the burgs in between that believe in beautiful baseball. The formula arrived at in Spring Training–pitching, defense, hustle and togetherness–was followed to the letter during a 99-win regular season and one of the more dominant playoff runs in recent memory. The Sox went 11-1 in the postseason, with their starting pitcher working at least seven innings in all but one of those games.
Freddy Garcia gave them seven scoreless innings in the clincher, and rookie Bobby Jenks closed it out with a huge assist from shortstop Juan Uribe, who literally went into the stands to catch Chris Burke’s foul popup for the second out of the ninth, then charged in to field Orlando Palmeiro’s bouncer and throw him out to end it.
The Sox small-balled their way to the game’s only run in the eighth. Harris batted for Garcia and singled. Scott Podsednik bunted him to second, and after he moved to third on a groundout, Dye scored him with a 12-hop single up the middle that was much better aimed than it was hard-hit.
But man, was it big, and no one was happier than Ozzie Guillen, the second-year manager who now has the pedigree to be taken seriously as a “baseball man.”
The high-energy Guillen was uncharacteristically downcast when the Sox hit a rough spot in September, complaining about his health and suggesting he might walk away for something less stressful.
On Wednesday, he was back to being his defiantly self-confident self, and with good reason.
“I didn’t come here for the glory, I didn’t come here for the money. I came here to win,” he said.
That he has.
W: Garcia (3-0) L: Lidge (0-3) S: Jenks (4)
