After decades of futility, the Chicago White Sox are the Major League Baseball champions of 2005. They did this without any superstars and with very little fanfare and hardly any support outside the midwest.
Here are some interesting facts about this year's Chicago White Sox that I picked up from an article on ESPN by Jayson Stark:
• They won their final eight games in a row -- tying the 2004 Red Sox for the longest winning streak any team has had in a single postseason.
• They went 11-1 in their 12 postseason games -- tying the '99 Yankees for the best postseason record of the 11-season wild-card era.
• They played six road games in this postseason -- against teams (Boston, Anaheim and Houston) that finished a combined 69 games over.500 at home this season -- and won all six.
• They became just the third team in history to sweep a World Series after a season in which they were in first place every day of the season. Those other two teams were the 1990 Reds and the fabled '27 Yankees.
• This was a team that, amazingly, won 15 games in which it scored one run or two -- the most by any team since the '69 Mets.
• And this was a team that, including the postseason, went an insane 68-35 in games decided by one run or two -- the best record in baseball.
• They outscored the Astros by only six runs over the entire World Series and still managed to sweep it -- tied with the 1950 Yankees for the smallest margin by any sweepers in history. And how fitting was it that the grand finale was one last 1-0 game?
• How fitting was it that the White Sox wound up sweeping a World Series in which they never led by more than two runs at any point in any game?
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