Flyer

Issue date: 5/7/05 Section: Multimedia

Is it possible to make White Sox fans
happy?

Give them the best record in baseball for
most of the season, and they wonder what's
going to go wrong.

Give them a trading deadline during
which they acquire only Geoff Blum, and
they start to panic.

And give them a recent slide that had
forced their AL Central lead into (gasp!)
single digits, and they're ready to give up.
What I'm here to tell them is, it's going
to be all right. Your beloved (though I
sometimes wonder if that word really
applies to Sox fans) team has a good
chance at a World Series title.

I understand your reasons for pessimism.
Anyone who is a fan of Chicago baseball to
any degree knows that, time and again, the
locals have come up short of reaching the
promised land. Why trust a team that has
let you down so many times before?

The answer: this team is different.
Granted, the Sox haven't made the playoffs
since 2001, so there's no way to tell for
sure, but this group has the look of a team
that can make a run deep into October.

Mark Buehrle and Freddy Garcia give
the Sox a one-two punch at the top of their
rotation, boasting experience and talent
that no other AL team can match. Manager
Ozzie Guillen then has a problem most in
his position would welcome: fi guring out
how to fi ll in the other rotation spots.

Jon Garland has been at or near the
top of the leaderboard for wins the entire
year. Orlando Hernandez was brought to
Chicago largely because of his repuation
as a big-game pitcher. And Jose Contreras,
as well as rookie Brandon McCarthy, have
had enough success lately that they can't
be ignored.

If Dustin Hermanson's back holds up,
he's a perfectly-capable anchor to a playoff
bullpen. It may be interesting to see how
setup men Neal Cotts, Cliff Politte and
Bobby Jenks hold up under the glare of
postseason lights, but Guillen isn't the only

Continued...

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