The '06 Series looked like the mother of all mismatches. The Cubs set a Major League Baseball record, still unbroken through 2000, with 116 regular-season wins. Meanwhile, the White Sox won "only" 93 games, and were known as "the Hitless Wonders" by virtue of their .230 team batting average.

The entire Series would, of course, be played in Chicago (in alternating ballparks), and snow flurries fell on Game 1 participants. Both starters allowed but four hits and one earned run, but Cubs ace Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown also permitted one unearned run, when catcher Johnny Kling dropped a throw at the plate. Nick Altrock gained the 2-1 decision for the Sox.

Game 2 went according to form, the Cubs romping in a 7-1 laugher thanks to the one-hit pitching of Ed Reulbach.

Game 3 was scoreless through five innings, but third baseman George Rohe -- filling in for injured star George Davis -- walloped a two-out, bases-loaded triple in the top of the sixth. That was all the scoring in the contest, as Sox starter Big Ed Walsh hurled a 3-0 two-hitter, fanning a dozen Cubs in the process.

Mordecai Brown carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning of Game 4, and wound up allowing just two base hits. Altrock was good, too, but the Cubs won the game on a single run in the seventh, Johnny Evers knocking home Joe Tinker with a two-out base hit.

Ed Walsh wasn't nearly as effective in Game 5. But he was good enough, as the "Hitless Wonders" battered a trio of Cub pitchers for 12 hits and eight runs.

Final: South Siders 8, West Siders 6.

The starting assignments for Game 6 went to Mordecai Brown -- working on just one day's rest -- and Doc White, who'd tossed three innings of scoreless relief in Game 5. This day, at least, White was the better man, as the Sox rocked Brown for six runs before his exit in the second inning. George Davis, back in the lineup, knocked in three runs, as did Sox first baseman Jiggs Donahue. White went the distance, retiring Wildfire Schulte on a grounder to first to clinch a most improbable World Series for the White Sox.

Managers: Fielder Jones, CWS; Frank Chance, CHC