Remembering White Sox '05 WS clincher

CHICAGO -- Even during this down time brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper has not watched the official DVD from the 2005 World Series championship.

He has viewed pieces here and there, but Cooper has never gone through the entire highlight reel of that memorable season.

“I’m thinking when I’m done, that’s when maybe I’ll sit back and watch a lot of stuff,” Cooper said during a recent phone interview.

Cooper doesn’t need video reinforcement to come up with distinct memories from throughout that 99-win campaign and the team’s 11-1 postseason run. Take Game 4 of the 2005 World Series against the Astros in Houston, as an example.

One overriding moment stands out for Cooper from the clincher in the four-game sweep.

“That we won,” he said.

The White Sox claimed a 1-0 victory in the title-clinching game on Oct. 26, coming on the heels of the team’s 7-5 victory in 14 innings that finished earlier the same day. Jermaine Dye, the World Series Most Valuable Player Award winner, drove home the lone run in Game 4 with a two-out, eighth-inning single off of closer Brad Lidge.

Dye’s ground ball up the middle scored Willie Harris, who opened the frame with a pinch-hit single, moved to second on Scott Podsednik’s sacrifice bunt and then moved to third on pinch-hitter Carl Everett’s groundout to second. Lidge was working in relief of Brandon Backe, who allowed five hits over seven scoreless innings and struck out seven.

White Sox starter Freddy Garcia matched Backe nearly pitch for pitch, yielding four hits and striking out seven before giving way to Harris as a pinch-hitter in the eighth. Garcia’s clutch performance came as no surprise to those who knew of his big-game reputation around baseball and within the White Sox. In fact Garcia predicted as much before Game 3.

“Freddy gets on the bus [before Game 3] and says, ‘If we win tonight, we will be the world champions tomorrow, because they won’t beat me,’” Cooper said. “We go out to warm up, and Paulie [Konerko] and JD [Dye], but especially Paulie, would always come to me after we warmed up Freddy and ask, ‘How does he look? Is he ready?’

“Anyway, we go out to warm up, I see right away, 'OK, he’s got it, he’s going to have enough if he goes out there and does his thing.’ Freddy is done warming up, I come in, Paulie is asking me, and I said, ‘Score some runs, and we’ll end it today. He has got it.’”

Only one run was needed on this particular evening, meaning the White Sox opened the season with a 1-0 victory at home against the Indians, started the season’s second half with a 1-0 victory at Cleveland and closed the organization’s first World Series title in almost nine decades by the same score.

Cliff Politte, Neal Cotts and Bobby Jenks followed Garcia on the mound in Game 4, with pinch-hitter Orlando Palmeiro’s grounder to shortstop Juan Uribe completing history in the ninth.

“It’s like the whole world stops,” said White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski, of the final out. “This just happened. We really just won the World Series in Chicago for a place that hadn’t done it in almost 100 years.”