Chisox revisit Bosox

A FEW DAYS AFTER BOSTON CAPTURED its first championship in 86 years, the New York Post ran an illustration of two men walking down a city street with dozens of pigs flying overhead. One guy turns to the other and says, "I see the Red Sox won the World Series." It was apt testimony to a highly unlikely occurrence. Yet, if October 2004 is to be remembered for rare events--lest we forget, the Bosox reached the Fall Classic in unprecedented fashion, overcoming a three games to zero playoff deficit against the New York Yankees--October 2005 will be etched in eternity as a month of mind-bending mirages, for not only did the Chicago White Sox win the American League pennant (1959 was the last time) and the Series (no such luck since 1917), they became intertwined in a fascinating histori cal juxtaposition with the Red Sox: starting in 1916, the two franchises alternated World Series appearances during a four-year stretch.

Yet, disaster struck in that final season of domination, as the Black Sox gambling scandal rocked the baseball world, with eight Chicago players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series to the underdog Cincinnati Reds. It took Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis' stern hand and Babe Ruth's prodigious home runs to return the game to its former pedestal as America's National Pastime. (So, if history repeats, Boston and Chicago will win the American League pennant in 2006 and 2007, respectively, with the Red Sox garnering another Series championship. Trouble is, if form continues to follow, neither club will wear a World Series ring after that until 2092.)

Conjecture aside, though, the White Sox do make for an interesting case study. For instance, it always has been a mystery why the Red Sox (some say "jinxed") and Cubs (others claim "cursed") have been accorded this almost mystical status as fabled franchises-in-waiting while the White Sox's drought in many ways has been longer and more agonizing. How so? Well, for one thing, the Cubbies and Bosox had multiple--albeit deserved--chances at baseball's ultimate prize. True, the Cubs have not won the National League pennant since 1945--having missed glorious chances in 1969 (Miracle Mets), 1984 (playoff collapse), and 2003 (fan interference)--but they have been to the World Series no less than seven times since their last championship in 1908. The Red Sox, meanwhile, were late-October participants in 1946, 1967, and 1986. Granted, they endured heartbreaking Game 7 losses on each occasion, but at least they were in the ballpark, so to speak. Not so for the Pale Hose. In 1906, Chicago celebrated its first World Series title, as the "Hitless Wonders" upset the cross-town rival Cubs of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance fame. However, between the 1919 scandal and last year's triumph, the White Sox have been to the World Series exactly once, in 1959, when they lost to the Dodgers. Even that served as an indirect jab at how creel--or kind--the fates can be to a city. The Dodgers had won nine pennants, but only one Series (1955), before abandoning Brooklyn for Los Angeles. Yet, they won it all in just their second year out West.

The present-day White Sox, meanwhile, have put an exclamation point on disparaging one of the great myths of our time--this imaginary, ever-widening gap between the rich and poor. (I'll leave the societal side of that preposterous theory to this publication's other columnists.) The powerhouse White Sox of 1917 and 1919 had rosters full of elite players, yet they were vastly underpaid--with no recourse, as free agency was but a pipedream back then--by the club's penurious owner, Charles Comiskey. The players' nip to the gamblers' den certainly had monetary motives, but it also symbolized retribution against Comiskey and the tight-fisted system he represented. Almost 60 years later, when the players finally did earn tree agency rights, the sky-is-falling owners (abetted greatly by the hysteria-prone media and fans) screamed of the game's impending ruination, and how all the small-market teams now never would have a chance to compete with the big boys. Instead, reality tromped mythology. From 1978-87, baseball crowned 10 different world champions, a first. Moreover, from 1979-96, 14 separate franchises wore the crown--again, a run of diversity never before seen.

Then the old New York Yankees monster reared its ugly head. The Yanks won four Series in five seasons, including three straight. And even though they faced three different N.L. opponents, out came the same tired old arguments about the insurmountable gap between the rich and poor. Just as suddenly, however ... poof! The myth once more was just hot air. In the last six seasons, capped by unlikely four-game sweeps by the Red Sox (over the St. Louis Cardinals, first Series appearance in 17 years) and White Sox (over the Houston Astros, first Series appearance in 43 years), major league baseball has christened a halt-dozen new champions. Thank you, Pale Hose, for sending the myth-makers to bed with no supper. The trouble is, should the Chisox somehow repeat, there seems little doubt that the crybabies will be at it again, singing their oh-so sad song about big-market domination.