Another magic night for Sox

October 24, 2005
If this is small ball, Ozzie Guillen is a wallflower. If this White Sox team isn't charmed, rainbows are bad luck.
Two homers driving in five runs in two innings?
Winning by a walk-off dinger?
If that's small, Eddie Gaedel is big.
"That's the way we play all year long,'' Guillen said after the 7-6 comeback victory. "We keep fighting. This team has a lot of unity.''
If Jermaine Dye was actually hit by that pitch from the Astros' Dan Wheeler, Halloween comes in April.
If game-winning home-run guy Scott Podsednik is a wimp, Lake Michigan is a pond.
And if Paul Konerko didn't put that seventh-inning grand slam in his all-time favorite home video, then God only knows what kind of excitement he's looking for in this lifetime.
"It's kind of an out-of-body thing,'' Konerko said of the mental impact of his four-run job.
With the bases jammed in the seventh inning -- Dye on first after plate umpire Jeff Nelson said he was struck by a pitch that clearly bounced off his bat (yep, another dubious call going the Sox' way), Tadahito Iguchi on second and Juan Uribe at third -- Konerko cranked the first pitch from Chad Qualls into the left-field bleachers.
White Sox players hit grand slams in the postseason about every, well, doggone it, they never do.
Welcome to the record book, Paulie.
And welcome to the lore that might be told and retold in Chicago households for generations to come.
Tough to beat
"They can't do anything wrong,'' said Astros manager Phil Garner, looking perplexed. "I kind of thought we turned things around, the way things were going.''
But he didn't count on Pods.
The left fielder who hit nary a homer in the regular season, crushed one 408 feet in the ninth inning to give the Sox the 7-6 win and a 2-games-to-zip lead in this World Series.
Konerko's jack bored a hole through the sprinkles of rain that were still coming through the chilly night.
What a ride those lucky droplets got!
But any moisture on Podsednik's homer probably boiled off with the frenzy.
Podsednik took not one but two curtain calls.
The crowd wouldn't have had it any other way.
"It's pretty much indescribable,'' Podsednik said of his blast. But it's his team's cohesiveness that's propelling the Sox, he insisted. "We have 25 guys pulling on the same rope.''
Shaky moments
Lockdown Sox closer Bobby Jenks let the Astros tie the game in the ninth at 6-all, and you could almost feel the bad karma starting to soak the Sox.
Down 4-2 in the seventh inning, the Sox already had seemed to be running out of the good fortune that had enabled them to win 13 of their last 14 games.
The seven-minute rain delay at the start gave Sox fans time to consider that this little championship journey won't be easy.
Or at least, it won't be relaxing.
After the Sox won Game 1, the path to success might have seemed straight and smooth and decorated with balloons.
Roger Clemens down with a bad hammy?
The White Sox winners of 17 of their last 20 games?
Come on, Chicago, let's hold hands and skip to the Land of Ozzie!
Then a bolt of lightning struck in the cold black sky above right field in the Astros' half of the fifth inning, and moments later Lance Berkman hit a two-run double that gave Houston a 4-2 lead.
It struck one like an electric shock that maybe it isn't written in some cheerful little script that the White Sox are cute and cuddly and get the Commissioner's Trophy without effort because it would be a sweet ending to 88 years of frustration and civic water treading.
In their part of the fifth, still down 4-2, Uribe and Iguchi both got tagged out on the basepaths -- in not spectacular fashion.
Was this finally Bear weather, the time of collisions and scrums, and the Sox' brains had dings in them?
All those stats that seemed so powerful, so dominating, suddenly didn't mean much.
The fact the Sox did so well this season when they took an early lead? So?
They went ahead 2-1 in the second inning, on RBI from Joe Crede and Uribe.
But it wasn't like the first-inning leads they thrive on -- having outscored opponents 121-68 in the first innings through the season, the 121 runs being the most in the major leagues.
But whatever it takes, they do it.
"We'll bounce back,'' Garner said. "We'll make a series of this.''
But will they?
How can they?
If there was a night that the dark clouds said belonged to the Astros, it was Sunday night.
And Houston couldn't snatch it from the unfathomable, seemingly unstoppable White Sox.
"We never let ourselves down,'' Guillen said.
Apparently, you figure, they just don't know how.

Source: http://www.suntimes.com/