October 23, 2005: Scott Podsednik powers White Sox with walk-off home run in Game 2

Scott Podsednik hits a walkoff home run off Astros closer Brad Lidge. (Courtesy of Ron Vesely / Chicago White Sox)

Stormy conditions in Chicago on October 23 threatened to wipe out Game Two of the World Series. With two of the league’s premier workhorses, Andy Pettitte and Mark Buehrle, on the mound, it had the makings of a messy affair that might see little in the way of offense if the game got underway at all. Roughly three hours later, the game didn’t limp but screamed into the bottom of the ninth inning, both teams’ bats having delivered punches and counterpunches. With the game knotted, 6-6, every hitter in the White Sox lineup had reached base … except Scott Podsednik.1

The temperature at game time was 45 degrees, and, as Fox broadcasters Joe Buck and Tim McCarver assured viewers, it felt even colder. Pettitte, a famously reliable big-game pitcher, was making the 11th World Series start of his career, tying him with Waite Hoyt and Christy Mathewson for second all-time.2 He came into the game with a 3-4 record in World Series play and a 3.90 ERA. Buehrle, the 2005 All-Star Game starter, was 2-0 in the 2005 postseason with a 2.81 ERA.

With his team down 2-1, the Astros’ 23-year-old center fielder, Willy Taveras, laced a one-out triple down the first-base line. Next up, Lance Berkman brought Taveras in with a sacrifice fly. Knotted back at 2-2, the White Sox started their half with a single, but with the help of a spectacular diving stop by Ensberg, Pettitte got out of the inning with no additional damage.

The fifth inning began with a double by Ausmus. Three batters later, Taveras had his second hit of the night, moving Ausmus to third base with a single to left. Berkman knocked in his second and third RBIs of the game with a loud double past left fielder Podsednik.

Clinging to a 4-2 lead, Pettitte overcame a leadoff double by Uribe by making an excellent play off the mound to catch him as he tried to race to third base on a dribbler hit by Tadahito Iguchi. Pettitte then picked off Iguchi to end the inning.3

After a scoreless sixth, the Astros replaced Pettitte with Dan Wheeler, who had given up one earned run over seven innings so far in the 2005 postseason. Wheeler got Crede for the first out, but Uribe cracked a long double into left-center. After Podsednik struck out, Iguchi walked. Next up, Jermaine Dye was hit by a pitch on a ball that, upon replay, clearly hit the knob of his bat. “I’m not going to tell [the umpire] I fouled it off,” Dye said after the game. “Just go to first and, hopefully, we get a big hit and we did.”4

With the bases now loaded, the White Sox’ best regular-season hitter, Paul Konerko, came to the plate. Astros manager Phil Garner replaced Wheeler with Chad Qualls, who had given up seven home runs over 79⅔ innings in the regular season.5

“I’ll tell you, a home run was the last thing on my mind right there. I’m looking just for a base hit,” Konerko said later.6 The first pitch Qualls threw was a belt-high fastball in on Konerko’s hands, but it caught enough of the plate that Konerko could barrel it up and belt it 13 rows into the left-field seats. The winds didn’t keep this one back. As the crowd shook the foundation of US Cellular Field, fireworks erupted overhead. “I recall standing out in left field after Paul had did what he did, thinking about, ‘Man, what does that man feel like right now?’” Podsednik said.7 The grand slam was the 18th in a fall classic, and it jumped the White Sox’ chances of winning the game by 58 percent; the largest change off a slam in World Series history.8 Earlier in the week, Konerko and his wife, Jennifer, had welcomed their first child. “It’s the second-best feeling I’ve had all week,” Konerko said. “The baby born Tuesday night, that’s first for the week.”9

The White Sox entered the eighth inning back on top, 6-4. Reliever Cliff Politte replaced Buehrle, who ended his night on precisely 100 pitches over seven gritty innings. Politte sat down the Astros’ two-three-four hitters in order. Qualls and Mike Gallo combined to get the White Sox in order in their half of the eighth, sending the game to the ninth with the home team clinging to a two-run lead.

The big rookie and unlikely hero from the night before, Bobby Jenks, came in to close the door. He immediately surrendered a single to Houston’s future Hall of Famer, Jeff Bagwell. Two batters later, he put another man on with a walk to Chris Burke. Ausmus’s groundout sent runners to scoring position and José Vizcaíno came to bat with the White Sox just an out away from taking care of both games at home. Instead, Vizcaíno slashed a line drive to center field that dropped in front of Rowand. Bagwell scored, and Burke beat the throw at the plate. “I made a good pitch, and Vizcaíno did a good job taking his approach to the plate and going the other way with it,” Jenks said after his blown save. Manager Ozzie Guillén swapped Jenks for Neal Cotts, who kept the game tied for the bottom of the ninth. “I think the closer’s job is the toughest job in baseball,” Guillén said. “You get paid to close, and then when you don’t, people are all over your case.”10

The Astros’ All-Star closer, Brad Lidge, knew that sentiment too well. Lidge hadn’t pitched since he gave up a ninth-inning home run to Albert Pujols in Game Five of the NLCS. Despite that, Garner returned to him against the White Sox. Lidge had 42 saves in the regular season thanks to 103 strikeouts over 70⅔ innings. “I was happy to get the opportunity to get in the game,” Lidge said. “Anyone would want to get back in as fast as they can after a bad game.”11

Lidge got the first batter in the bottom of the ninth, Uribe, on a harmless broken-bat fly ball to center field. Podsednik came to the plate, hoping to reach base for the first time in the game. He had 507 plate appearances during the regular season and zero home runs.12 Lidge immediately delivered two balls off the plate, putting Podsednik ahead in the count. The closer then put one right down the middle that Podsednik didn’t even consider swinging at.

Before the next pitch, Joe Buck asked McCarver if he thought Lidge should’ve pitched in Game Six to get the taste of the Pujols home run out of his mouth. McCarver remarked, “I don’t think that taste is there.”13 Lidge then delivered the ball down the middle again, in the same exact spot. This time, Podsednik not only offered at it, but he propelled it deep into left-center field, where it sailed over the wall. Gone. McCarver quipped, “The taste might be there now.”14 As if in a flash, the game was over.

“You don’t expect him to do that,” Lidge said. “He’s not a home run guy.”15 Just two innings earlier, Podsednik could only imagine what it might feel like to hit a huge home run; now he said, “To go out and hit one out of the ballpark for a game-winner is pretty much indescribable.”16

After the series, Bagwell remarked, “We just didn’t hit.”17 But that wasn’t true of Game Two, when the Astros had nine hits and the game in the palm of their hands before lousy luck and two gutting homers. The White Sox proved the team of destiny with the ability to match the Astros every step of the way. As Murray Chass put it in his New York Times recap, “No save for the White Sox’s closer, but no mercy for the Astros’ closer.”18 Through the first two games, the Astros stranded 10 runners on base, including seven in scoring position with two outs.

The first White Sox World Series championship since 1917 ended in a sweep, but the difference in scoring over the four games was only six runs. Each game followed the same “movie-script”19 tension of Game Two. Neither Konerko nor Podsednik took home the Series MVP,20 but their two swings, separated by two innings, made them a pair of the most beloved players in White Sox history.21 In 2014 the White Sox honored Konerko with a statue outside the ballpark, his bronze fist raised permanently in the air, just as it was when he rounded first on that cold night in 2005.22

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA200510230.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2005/B10230CHA2005.htm

A video of the full game is available on YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z8pqdhhwDw

Notes

1 In Game One, Houston Astros ace Roger Clemens didn’t have his best stuff, getting knocked around for three runs before exiting after two innings with a hamstring injury. It was the shortest outing of Clemens’ postseason career. It was a back-and-forth contest early, with the Astros getting to White Sox starter José Contreras for three runs of their own. But things settled from there. The White Sox needed just a Joe Crede home run and a four-out save from “wide, tall” rookie Bobby Jenks to secure the 5-3 victory.

2 Pettitte passed Hoyt and Mathewson when he started his 12th World Series game in 2009. As of 2024, Whitey Ford held the record with 22 World Series starts.

3 Pettitte was known for his savvy move to first. This was his second successful pickoff of the 2005 postseason. He finished his career with 10 postseason pickoffs.

4 “Podsednik’s Walk-Off Homer Lifts Chicago Past Houston,” ESPN.com, October 25, 2005, https://web.archive.org/web/20121019110646/http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=251023104 (last accessed August 5, 2024).

5 Qualls was lights out in the prior series against the St. Louis Cardinals (zero earned runs over 4⅔ innings).

6 Tom Goldman, “White Sox Lead 2-0 in World Series,” National Public Radio, October 24, 2005, https://www.npr.org/2005/10/24/4971020/white-sox-lead-2-0-in-world-series (last accessed August 5, 2024).

7 Goldman.

8 Ryan Potts, “World Series Gand Slams: Ranking the Best Five, Slam Station, March 23, 2023, https://slamstation.com/2023/03/18/world-series-grand-slams-top-5/ (last accessed August 5, 2024).

9 Rich Gano (Associated Press), “What’s Next for Konerko?” Spokane Spokesman-Review, October 24, 2005.

10 “White Sox Jenks Faces Other Side of Being a Closer,” Uniontown (Pennsylvania) Herald-Standard, October 25, 2005.

11 Jayson Stark, “Podsednik’s Homer Can’t Be Explained,” ESPN.com, October 23, 2005, https://www.espn.com/mlb/playoffs2005/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=2202029 (last accessed August 5, 2024).

12 Podsednik did hit an improbable home run in the American League Division Series against the Boston Red Sox. As of 2024 he was the only major-league player to hit zero home runs in the regular season but two in the postseason.

13 John Quinn, “2005 World Series Game 2 Astros @ White Sox,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Y1ZhKvMwA, May 16, 2020.

14 “2005 World Series Game 2 Astros @ White Sox.”

15 Stark, “Podsednik’s Homer Can’t Be Explained.”

16 After the game Podsednik edged out Konerko as Fox’s Chevrolet Player of the Game.

17 Murray Chass, “There’s Nothing Closed About Case of Missing Closers,” New York Times, October 24, 2005.

18 Chass.

19 “2005 World Series,” Baseball Almanac, https://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr2005ws.shtml (last accessed August 5, 2024).

20 The MVP award went to Jermaine Dye and his .438 Series batting average.

21 A post-2005 renovation replaced all but two of the blue seats in the ballpark (called Guaranteed Rate Field since 2016) with green ones. The two? Section 159, row 7, seat 4, where Konerko’s grand slam landed, and section 101, row 1, seat 13, where Podsednik’s game-winner landed. As of 2024, the game’s 41,432 fans made it the most attended White Sox home game since 2001, when significant renovations on the ballpark began.

22 “White Sox Honor Retiring Paul Konerko with a Statue,” USA Today, September 28, 2014, https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2014/09/27/white-sox-honor-retiring-konerko-with-statue/16358271/ (last accessed August 26, 2024).