White Sox’s Sweep Has Broadcasters Fawning

The Chicago White Sox put together a nice little October run and did something nobody younger than 90 has ever seen, and, well, good for them.

Too bad everyone armed with pancake makeup and a microphone Wednesday night couldn’t take a cue from White Sox shortstop Juan Uribe and get a grip. The White Sox were still minutes away from taking the field for World Series Game 4 against the Houston Astros when Fox analyst Tim McCarver was already christening them as one of the great baseball clubs of all time.

“The White Sox have been playing a relentless brand of baseball in the postseason,” McCarver said. “It’s been so good that a lot of people feel that they could beat any team from any era.” Shortly after, Fox ran a graphic of the White Sox Game 4 starting lineup: Podsednik, Iguchi, Dye, Konerko, Pierzynski, Rowand, Crede, Uribe, Garcia. Not a Ruth, Gehrig or Lazzeri among them.

McCarver soon went on to trample all over the point he’d just made, noting, “The guys who have won the last two games with home runs -- Scott Podsednik and Geoff Blum -- [each] had one home run this year. One! And they have two in the last two games.”

After the White Sox had completed a sweep with a 1-0 victory, Peter Gammons of ESPN traveled down the same path as McCarver.

“How do you judge teams?” Gammons said. “It’s how they dominated that season; that’s all you can take. I think we all agree in the last 25 years the ’98 Yankees were by far the best team.

“But, you take the other teams. [The White Sox] went wire to wire in a division that was eight games over .500 ... against the American League East. So they went wire to wire in the best division in the American League, they dominated the postseason, they led the league in wins.”

That’s one way to look at it. On the other hand, the White Sox did not win as many games as the St. Louis Cardinals and did not enter the postseason favored to win the AL pennant. They won 11 of 12 postseason games, but did so against a Boston Red Sox team that was a flimsy imitation of the 2004 championship club, an Angel team with a depleted pitching staff and an Astro team that won 89 regular-season games and could not hit.

And the White Sox beat those Astros by one run in Games 2 and 4 and needed 14 innings to win Game 3.

Still, Gammons said that after the ’98 Yankees, “I think the only comparable teams [to the White Sox] of the past 25 years are the ’84 Tigers, the ’89 A’s and probably the ’99 Yankees. They’re right there in that class.”

And Those Ratings

As good as they might be, the White Sox couldn’t rescue this World Series from record-low TV ratings. Through three games, the Series averaged a 10.6 rating with a 19 share, down 29% from last year’s Boston-St. Louis World Series and 2% behind the previously lowest-rated series, the Angel-Giant matchup in 2002.

Even Tuesday’s 14-inning marathon couldn’t produce much interest. Game 3, the longest World Series game on record, drew an 11.0 rating with a 21 share; Game 3 in 2004 had a 15.7 rating with a 24 share. Wednesday night’s Game 4 in Los Angeles had a 13.8 rating with a 23 share. Nationally, the game had a 14.8 rating with a 24 share. The Red Sox-Cardinals Game 4, by comparison, had a 19.7 rating and a 29 share.