NEW YORK -- When the White Sox won the World Series for the
first time in nearly nine decades, it took awhile for Jerry
Reinsdorf to realize what the title meant to many in Chicago.
"It started with a friend of mine sending an e-mail saying he
had gone to the cemetery to tell his parents the White Sox had won
the World Series," the White Sox owner said, "and when he got
there, two-thirds of the graves were decorated with White Sox
memorabilia. And then I found out that this was not just at that
cemetery, this was going on all around the area."
Chicago's remarkable run to its first World Series title since
1917 was voted sports story of the year in balloting by newspaper
and broadcast members of The Associated Press.
"There's hardly anybody still alive from 1917, and those few
who are really don't much remember that," Reinsdorf said. "So
this is the first time this has happened in almost everybody's
lifetime. And the impact has just been incredible. Baseball makes
people think about their ancestors, their parents and their
grandparents."
Chicago's victory received 552 points in the voting. Hurricane
Katrina displacing the NFL's New Orleans Saints, the NBA's Hornets
and college teams was second with 465 points, followed by Lance
Armstrong's record seventh straight Tour de France title (455), the
furor over steroids in baseball (448), the New England Patriots'
Super Bowl victory (259), Southern California's attempt to win its
third straight college football title (243) and Baltimore's Rafael
Palmeiro getting his 3,000th hit and then getting suspended for
steroids.
Chicago went an AL-best 99-63 during the regular season, holding
on to win the AL Central after a September slump nearly dropped the
White Sox into second place behind Cleveland. Chicago then went
11-1 during the postseason, matching the 1999 New York Yankees for
the best mark since the postseason expanded to three rounds in
1995.
"This was truly a team triumph," Reinsdorf said. "We didn't
have a single .300 hitter. We only had one man who drove in 100
runs and it was just 100 runs. We didn't have a 20-game winner.
Everybody contributed to it. It certainly was a tribute to our
scouts, too. Think about how they jumped on Bobby Jenks."
Jenks was claimed on waivers from the Angels in December 2004,
and the portly 270-pounder with the 100-mph fastball became
Chicago's closer in the second half of the season.
Paul Konerko led the White Sox with 100 RBIss. While he became a
free agent after the World Series, he re-signed with Chicago, which
appeared to get even stronger this offseason by adding pitcher
Javier Vazquez and designated hitter Jim Thome.
"Konerko didn't come up through our organization, it was a
trade with Cincinnati after the Dodgers and the Reds had given up
on him," Reinsdorf said. "But our scouts saw something in him.
You can go around the whole lineup, if you will, and the scouts had
so much to do with it."
Reinsdorf's Chicago Bulls won six NBA titles from 1991-98. This
championship meant far more, he said last week from the Phoenix
area, where he spends much of the offseason.
"Basketball is a great sport. Baseball is a religion, and I
truly believe that," Reinsdorf said. "Ask 10 people what was the
first basketball game they went to and whom did they go with, then
ask them what was the first baseball game and whom they went with,
and there's a good chance that all 10 will remember the baseball
and none of them will remember the basketball -- or the football or
the hockey."
Despite the sweep, the White Sox outscored Houston by just six
runs in the World Series, matching the smallest run differential in
a sweep, a mark set by the 1950 Yankees against the Philadelphia
Phillies.
Had it not been for a few controversial calls in the AL
championship series that went Chicago's way, the Angels could have
been in the World Series seeking their second title in four
seasons.
"In order for a team, an ordinary team, to win the World Series
-- by ordinary team, that's everybody other than the Yankees -- all
sorts of things have to happen, the stars really have to line up in
the right order," Reinsdorf said. "You have to have a lot of
breaks, and we got them. I can think of a zillion breaks that we
got in the postseason."
Reinsdorf's group bought the White Sox in 1981 and endured a
quarter-century wait just to make it to the World Series. The joy
he saw from the people of Chicago awed him.
"This could only happen in a city that has a long history in
baseball that hadn't won for a long time," he said. "New York had
parades when the Yankees won, it was not the same thing. When the
Diamondbacks won the World Series here a few years ago -- what was
it, their third or fourth year? -- it wasn't the same thing. When a
whole generation or several generations have failed to see a winner
and then finally saw that winner, the joy is beyond belief. If we
were to win again next year, I can't imagine it would be the same
thing."