On Oct. 24, the ESPN Stats and Info Twitter account tweeted an attempt to show how dominant the Los Angeles Dodgers have been in the postseason leading up to the World Series.
The tweet read: “The Dodgers are 7-1 this postseason. The 1998 Yankees are the only team in the Wild Card Era to win the World Series with 2 losses or fewer.”
Harmless tweet, right? Well, not so much.
Why? Because it is not accurate.
The 2005 Chicago White Sox lost just one postseason game on their way to winning their first World Series championship in 88 years that season.
OK. Harmless mistake, right?
It would be, if this were the first time ESPN made this mistake.
In fact, it happened again exactly one year ago to the day.
A year ago, Oct. 24, 2016, while the Cubs were in the midst of their World Series run, SportsCenter showed a map listing the number of professional sports championships the professional sports teams in Chicago and Cleveland had won since the year 1965. Cleveland’s lone championship during that time span was won earlier that year when the Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. The graphic listed Chicago as having won 10 championships during that time: six for the Bulls back in the 1990s, three for the Blackhawks since 2010 and one for the Bears in 1985.
Wait a minute. Something is missing here.
Ah, yes. The White Sox in 2005.
ESPN blatantly forgot about the existence of the 2005 White Sox team and left them off a graphic they showed live on air during a segment talking about recent championships each city has won.
But wait, there’s more.
The exact same day that the inaccurate ESPN graphic was shown, the CBS This Morning Twitter account tweeted: “Wrigley Field is prepping this morning for an event Chicago hasn’t seen in 71 years: the World Series.”
Excuse me?
Did they just say the city of Chicago hasn’t seen or hosted a World Series in 71 years?
Well that’s funny, because the White Sox did host the first two games of the 2005 World Series.
The way that tweet was worded implied Chicago hadn’t hosted a World Series game since 1945, which was just more false information as the White Sox hosted World Series games twice since then, in 1959 and 2005.
Make one mistake, fine whatever. Make the same mistake again, a pattern is starting to form here. Make the mistake a third time, strike three.
Is there some sort of conspiracy by the national media to try and get rid of any and all evidence of the White Sox’s World Championship in 2005? And if there is, why?
Well, as a White Sox fan, I cannot just stand by and let these atrocities go on unnoticed.
One reason why this is so maddening is because the 2005 White Sox are definitely not a team that should be forgotten. Their regular season record that year was 99-63, and stomped to a postseason record of 11-1. That season, they swept the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox in three games in the ALDS, dispatched the Los Angeles Angels in five games in the ALCS and then swept the Houston Astros in four games during the World Series to finish off one of the most dominant postseason appearances by any MLB team ever.
It also feels like this is an important time to honor one of the most underappreciated baseball teams in history. The Astros, the team that lost to that White Sox team in the World Series back in 2005, are back in the Fall Classic and are currently leading the 2017 World Series three games to two over the Dodgers. This is the Astros’ first appearance in the World Series since 2005.
The losing pitcher in Game two of this current Series was Dodgers reliever Brandon McCarthy, who was a member of the 2005 Chicago White Sox and is the last player from that team still active in the majors. Sunday night’s Game 5 of the Series was the second-longest World Series game by time in history. The only World Series game in history that has been longer is Game 3 of the 2005 World Series between the White Sox and Astros, a game the White Sox won 7-5 in 14 innings.
So here’s a cap tip to the 2005 Chicago White Sox, one of the most under-appreciated baseball teams in history and a team that did win the World Series, despite what other media outlets say.
