Another one bites the dust
The Chicago White Sox swept the Houston Astros and are now the the World Champions of Baseball. In doing so, they shattered an 88 year drought and their own curse of sorts. Those who believe in such things attribute the 1919 Black Sox scandal to be the instigator of the "curse" in the same way that the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees led to that whole 86 year thingie we Red Sox fans don't have to deal with anymore.
Side Note: There is a great John Sayles movie about this scandal, where 8 members of the White Sox threw the World Series, entitled 8 Men Out. It's got a pretty decent cast as well, including John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, Charlie Sheen and John Mahoney.
For some reason, this was not spoken about nearly to the levels that the Red Sox were. Maybe it was because the White Sox didn't also have that heartbreaking history to go along with it. White Sox fans didn't have that "we were so close" aspect to their saga, while we fans of the red footwear variety would get so close only to have a Bucky Dent or Calvin Schiraldi dash our hopes onto the rocks. The White Sox never really had that type of heartbreak...that's saved for the Cubs.
But it is strange that in the past two years we've seen losing streaks as constant and able to be counted on as death and taxes just shatter. Not limp to a World Series win, but completely blow the roof off the place. The Red Sox did it last year by sweeping the Angels, coming back from the biggest defecit ever to defeat the hated Yankees for the ALCS and then swept the Cards to take it all. This year the White Sox were nearly as dominant and history would not be denied. It feels like it means something bigger than baseball. There are a lot of walls being torn down and a lot of "breakthroughs" in all walks of life, seemingly happening everyday. The optimistic part of me would like to think it's a sign of amazing things to come. The pessismistic side says, "it's just baseball".
But all of me says, "man, I'd hate to be a Cubs fan".
<< Home