The White Sox End an 88-Year Championship Drought

On October 26, 2005, the Chicago White Sox defeated the Houston Astros 1-0 in Game 4 of the World Series to complete a four-game sweep and win their first championship since 1917. The franchise had waited 88 years, the second-longest drought in baseball history behind only the Red Sox's 86-year gap, which had ended the year before.

Game 4 was a pitchers' duel between Chicago's Freddy Garcia and Houston's Brandon Backe. The two right-handers traded scoreless innings through seven. In the top of the eighth, with two outs and Willie Harris on first, Series MVP Jermaine Dye singled up the middle to score the only run of the game. Rookie closer Bobby Jenks finished off the Astros in the ninth.

The sweep was emphatic but misleading. Three of the four games were decided by a single run. Game 3, the longest World Series game ever played, went 14 innings and lasted five hours and 41 minutes before Geoff Blum's solo home run gave Chicago a 7-5 win. The White Sox bullpen held Houston scoreless for the final six innings of that game.

The 2005 White Sox won 99 regular-season games and lost only once in the postseason, going 11-1 across three rounds. Their starting pitching was dominant. Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, Garcia, and Jose Contreras combined for a 2.09 ERA in October.

Chicago's celebration on the South Side drew an estimated two million people to the parade route. For a franchise defined by the 1919 Black Sox scandal and decades of second-tier status behind the Cubs, the sweep represented a complete reversal of identity. The White Sox were champions again, and they had done it without losing a single game in the Fall Classic.