For the last 10 years or so, I've been loath to indulge nostalgia for the 2005 World Series, and the report that the White Sox have talked to Ozzie Guillen twice about their managerial vacancy underscores why.
The White Sox's only real triumph of the last 105 years looks about 105 years old because it predates the widespread adoption of high-definition television. They avoided marking the anniversary on social media two days ago, so at some level they recognize the sadness of celebrating the same thing over and over again, but as long as they retain the leadership that hasn't won a postseason series since -- and if there's fire behind the Guillén smoke, they're thinking about restoring even more of it -- it's hard to count on Jerry Reinsdorf ever turning the page.
Still, it's hard to watch a World Series game in Houston without specific moments of the White Sox's championship run coming to mind, and there was one play in particular that stood out late in Game 1 on Friday.
With two outs in the top of the 10th inning, Bryson Stott fouled off a Ryne Stanek fastball down the left-field line. Alex Bregman chased it, but he and the ball encountered the netting before they could find each other, so the at-bat remained alive.
It was then I fully realized that Juan Uribe's catch down the left field line for the penultimate out of the 2005 World Series wouldn't be possible nowadays.
Granted, I understood these specific consequences back in 2019 when the White Sox became the first team to expand protective netting from foul pole to foul pole ...
Baseball will lose a little bit of its natural charm when players bounce off screens instead of tumbling into the stands. It’s cool when the players expand the park to include the fans, and there’s a little bit of a loss in knowing Gordon wouldn’t have creamed Guerrero, that the Juan Uribe catch in Houston would’ve been a foul ball, that Avisail Garcia might never have high-fived this child.
... but I suppose I didn't expect to see such an accurate simulation on Friday.
Stott basically hit an identical pop-up to the one by Chris Burke in 2005. Bregman is a third baseman while Uribe played short, but they approached the play from a similar angle due to the shift on the lefty Stott. Only Uribe could make the grab, because only Uribe was afforded the extra space necessary to see it through.
Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two plays.
There's indeed a little bit of drama lost, although I still think it's a fair trade for fewer traumatic injuries in the lower concourse. Still, it's one of those moments that make me glad the White Sox won the World Series when they won it, and in the manner they won it, even if it very much interferes with the White Sox's attempts to do it again.
