Joe Crede

If the major leagues awarded an MVP for an entire postseason, rather than separate honors for the Championship Series and World Series, Joe Crede built one of the 2005 White Sox’ strongest cases.

At the plate, he hit .289/.327/.622 with 4 homers and 11 RBIs, with one of those runs driven in coming at the White Sox’ most vulnerable point of the postseason. In the field, he provided lockdown defense at third base that drew comparisons to World Series legends like Brooks Robinson and Graig Nettles.

Until August of that year, it would have been hard to see it coming, because Crede’s climb to being a key component of a World Series champion wasn’t a straightforward one.

Crede was born on April 26, 1978, in Jefferson City, Missouri, and raised in Westphalia, a city 15 miles away with a population of around 300. The Crede family was an athletic one. His father, David, played for a US Air Force baseball team, the Weisbaden Flyers, in Germany, and tried out for the Dodgers in consecutive springs before turning to fast-pitch softball upon returning home.1 A Crede cousin, Dennis Higgins, played in the major leagues from 1966 to 1972, including time with the White Sox in 1966 and 1967.2

David and Debbie Crede had four children: a daughter, Leigh Ann, and three baseball-playing sons – Brad, Joe, and Josh, all of whom starred at Fatima High School. Brad, five years older than Joe, played college baseball at Central Missouri State University. Josh, five years younger than Joe, saw his baseball career cut short by a car accident in 1999.3

The two older Crede brothers were both selected in the 1996 draft. The White Sox selected Joe out of Fatima High in the fifth round on the recommendation of scouts Doug Laumann and Paul Provas, while the Phillies drafted Brad in the 19th round. Brad Crede played two years of professional ball, topping out at Class A before going into teaching. Joe’s playing days lasted considerably longer.

Joe played rookie-level ball with the Gulf Coast League White Sox in 1996, batting .299 in 56 games. In 1997 he hit .271 for the Hickory Crawdads (Class-A South Atlantic League).

Crede established his bona fides in 1998, hitting .315 with 20 homers, driving in 88 and winning the Class-A+ Carolina League MVP with Winston-Salem as a 20-year-old. A toe injury hampered him in 1999, but in 2000 he was the Southern League MVP with the Birmingham Barons, with a 306 average, 21 homers and 94 RBIs in 2000.

The White Sox called Crede up that September, giving him a handful of late-game appearances and a couple of starts after the White Sox clinched the division championship. He debuted on September 12 and got his first major-league hit in his second plate appearance, on September 17 against Toronto’s Paul Quantrill. Crede’s first career start came at third base against the Kansas City Royals on September 29, during which he recorded his first career RBI on a sacrifice fly.

When it came to regular playing time, the 6-foot-3-inch righty’s path over the next two seasons was blocked by a cluster of veterans including José Valentin, Herbert Perry, Royce Clayton, and Tony Graffanino. Crede was exclusively a third baseman, which made him a poor fit for a bench role.

The logjam finally broke at the trade deadline in 2002. The White Sox trailing the Minnesota Twins by 14 games in the AL Central Division in late July, traded stalwart second baseman Ray Durham to Oakland and turned their attention to the following season, which included playing Crede regularly at third base the rest of the way. Crede, then 24, immediately validated the minor-league accolades by hitting .285/.311/.515 with 12 home runs in 53 games, including a stretch of six homers over seven games to close out August.

But as Crede became a major-league regular, he was prone to slumps that could last weeks, and sometimes months. He had dealt with slow starts in the minors, and Baseball America’s 2002 scouting report said Crede “expects so much from himself that he’s too critical at times.”4 White Sox coaches tried to get the taciturn Crede to lighten up,5 but over time they came to accept the ups and downs for the combination of above-average defense and 20-homer power, especially when the White Sox surged out of the gate and built a seemingly insurmountable division lead during the first half of 2005.

Two injuries in the 2005 season jeopardized Crede’s standing. One would rear its ugly head down the road, but one was credited with rejuvenating his season.

He went into the All-Star break with a sore back, determined to be due to herniated discs, but he planned to play through the discomfort for the rest of the season.6 In late August he suffered a hairline fracture on the tip of his right middle finger during a bunt attempt. That required a trip to the disabled list.

The rest might have turned out to be a blessing. Crede was mired in an 0-for-21 slump before the finger injury, but he returned after the minimum 15-day stay by starting a six-game hitting streak. He said he used the time off to study tape and make tweaks to his swing,7 and the adjustments stuck. He hit .371/.409/.726 with six homers over the final 19 games of the regular season. His resurgence couldn’t have been timelier, because the Cleveland Indians had whittled the White Sox’ 15-game lead down to a few games over the final fortnight of the season.

Crede provided a preview of his heroics to come on September 20, the middle game of a critical three-game series against Cleveland. The Indians won the opener to narrow the White Sox lead to 2½ games, and then tied the second game by tagging Bobby Jenks with a blown save in the top of the ninth, which sent the game into extra innings. After Dustin Hermanson pitched a scoreless top of the 10th, Crede led off the bottom of the inning. He had already homered earlier in the game, and he turned David Riske’s 1-and-0 fastball into his second homer, a no-doubt blast that gave the White Sox some welcome breathing room.

That turned out to be the second-biggest hit of Crede’s 2005 season, as it was trumped by his walk-off double in Game Two of the ALCS against the Angels. He came to the plate after A.J. Pierzynski extended the ninth inning of a 1-1 game by running to first base after swinging over Kelvim Escobar’s low splitter that may or may not have hit the dirt. After pinch-runner Pablo Ozuna stole second, Crede roped a hanging splitter off the left-field wall for a 2-1 victory that tied the Series at one win apiece.

The White Sox won their final eight games of the postseason, beating the Angels in five games before sweeping the Astros, and Crede was a major factor in both Series.

He and Pierzynski teamed up to victimize Escobar again in Game Five of the ALCS. With two outs in the eighth, Escobar walked Aaron Rowand, and then Pierzynski reached on an Escobar error when Escobar fielded a nubber along the first-base line, but tagged Pierzynski with his glove while his bare hand held the ball. Once more that brought Crede to the plate with two outs in a tie game, and he hit Francisco Rodriguez’s full-count slider back up the middle. Adam Kennedy smothered the fourth hop in shallow center field, but his throw home on one knee didn’t have enough on it to get Rowand, and the White Sox took a 4-3 lead they held the rest of the way.

When the White Sox advanced to the World Series, Crede continued to collect important hits. He put the White Sox ahead 4-3 in Game One with a fourth-inning solo shot off Wandy Rodriguez, which held up as the game-winning run thanks to six scoreless innings by the White Sox bullpen. He contributed an RBI single early in Game Two, then hit a solo shot off Roy Oswalt in Game Three that started a five-run fifth that erased Houston’s 4-0 lead.

Crede paired the clutch hits with clutch defense. In Game One he made three outstanding plays to his right, including a pair of diving stops in the sixth and seventh innings, both times preventing a runner on third from scoring the tying run. He followed it up with a diving catch of Adam Everett’s liner in Game Two. The steady stream of highlight plays evoked comparisons to Brooks Robinson, and the Orioles Hall of Famer offered his praise when asked about Crede’s October reel.

“He gets down in the dirt, he looks like one of those blue-collar workers,” Robinson told the Chicago Tribune. “I was really impressed with his play in the World Series, the way he moves around. He’s terrific.”8

Crede’s all-around excellence and high-leverage heroics over both Series gave him a strong case as the White Sox’ most important player in October, but he missed out on both MVP honors. Though Crede went 7-for-19 with two homers, two doubles, and seven RBIs in the ALCS against the Angels, Paul Konerko took home the MVP. Crede went 5-for-17 with two homers and a double against the Astros, but Jermaine Dye took the honors by hitting .438 and delivering the Series-winning single in Game Four.

Crede had to settle for being a local hero, including a starring role in the championship parade, during which he, Pierzynski, and Rowand sang “Don’t Stop Believin’” with Journey frontman Steve Perry. The trio had adopted the 1981 hit as a rally song after hearing it in a Baltimore bar,9 and Crede’s participation was the culmination of a years-long attempt to show his personality.

Unfortunately for Crede, his time at the top of his game was limited. He sustained the breakout form well into 2006, reaching his typical 20 homers by the final week of July and carrying a .300 average into September, but the herniated discs flared up shortly after Labor Day, and while he avoided a trip to the disabled list, it sapped his offense the rest of the season, as he finished with just seven hits in his last 62 plate appearances. Despite the fizzle at the finish, he batted .283/.323/.506 with 30 homers and earned a Silver Slugger Award at third base.

Back problems defined the rest of Crede’s Chicago career. He opted against surgery after the 2006 season, choosing a strength and conditioning program to build up the muscles around the troublesome discs.10 After two months of struggles, Crede underwent a procedure, a “microdiscectomy to remove herniated disc particles that were putting pressure on a sciatic nerve.”11 It cost him the rest of the season, and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillén criticized Crede for delaying the procedure.

“When you have surgery right now, it’s like nothing,” Guillén said. “You go through a couple months of rehab on your way back and sometimes you feel better. It’s a shame we had to wait this long to make that happen because if he did it when he was supposed to do it, then right now we’d have a different surgery.”12

Crede’s recovery, both physically and in terms of his relationship with the franchise, wasn’t that simple. He returned to the lineup for Opening Day in 2008, and while he opened the season by hitting .253/.314/.516 with 7 homers and 22 RBIs over 25 games in April, the encouraging start revealed further friction between the player and the organization. Crede, an impending free agent represented by Scott Boras, said the White Sox had not made him a compelling offer to consider signing an extension before reaching free agency.13 The two sides had talked past each other in the run-up to the regular season. White Sox general manager Kenny Williams said Boras told the team that there was no interest in discussing an extension,14 while Boras said he didn’t want to negotiate a contract for a player while he was injured.15

Crede’s hot start turned into his first All-Star nod, as he hit .252/.323/.463 with 16 homers and 49 RBIs during the first half, but shortly after the second half started, the debate was moot. His back problems returned, and two trips to the injured list limited him to just 11 games the rest of the season.16

Crede played his last game for the White Sox on September 2, 2008. He watched from the bench as the Sox outlasted the Minnesota Twins for the division title in a tiebreaking Game 163 at Guaranteed Rate Field. He had a second back surgery in October 2008, which prolonged his inability to find his next contract.

Shortly after spring training started in February 2009, Crede signed a one-year, $2.5 million deal with the Twins.17 His contract included incentives worth upward of $7 million, but the move to the artificial turf of the Metrodome didn’t agree with the 31-year-old Crede. He played in just 90 games around an assortment of injuries – right shoulder, bruised hand, bruised knee, sore hamstring – before another flare-up with his back effectively ended his season in late August. He played in just two games in September, striking out in all four plate appearances in what turned out to be his final major-league game on September 13, and underwent a third back surgery after the season.18

Crede missed all of the 2010 season in recovery, but although he signed with the Colorado Rockies on a minor-league deal with an invitation to spring training in January 2011, he never reported.

“The bottom line was the back was just not responding to what treatment I was getting,” Crede said. “I’d hate to say how many cortisone shots I’ve had in my back. I don’t think I want to know how many cortisone shots in my back. With the three surgeries and the last one, I felt it went well, it just didn’t go as well as I thought it would.”19

Crede returned to Missouri after his playing days to tend to his farm and help raise his three children – Anna, Lucy, and Jace – with his wife, Lisa. His jersey was retired by Fatima High School, and he was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2013, but while his back has improved with distance from his playing days, it limited his ability to coach the next generation of Credes.

“I helped out my youngest boy, who is in eighth grade now, with his team,” Crede said in 2022. “I realized I can’t do it anymore from hitting groundballs and pitching to him. Everything starts hurting. I hate getting old.”20

Crede finished his career hitting .254/.304/.444 with 140 homers and 470 RBIs in 888 major-league games, but the herniated discs truncated what could have been a more storied career, and it also continued the White Sox’ decades-long trend of career-altering injuries to third basemen.

Pete Ward finished top 10 in MVP voting in 1963 and 1964 but suffered whiplash in a car accident and wasn’t the same. Bill Melton won the White Sox’ first-ever home-run crown in 1971, but he fell off a ladder and injured his back. Robin Ventura wrecked his ankle on a slide at home plate in 1997, shortening his run as the franchise’s greatest third baseman.

Crede’s career took a little too long to get going, and ended too soon after that to fulfill the expectations from his prospect days of being Ventura’s heir apparent, but because he peaked at the right time, he has something that no other White Sox third baseman in 88 years could boast: a World Series ring.

Last revised: March 1, 2025

 

Sources

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

 

Notes

1 John Mullin, “‘Real’ Crede Answering Call,” Chicago Tribune. March 19, 2004: A9.

2 Melissa Isaacson, “Sheds Shell, Raises Game,” Chicago Tribune, August 7, 2005: 3, 12.

3 Joshua Crede Obituary, Gasconade County Republican (Owensville, Missouri), October 11, 2023.

4 https://www.baseballamerica.com/players/676811-joe-crede/.

5 “‘Real’ Crede Answering Call.”

6 Mark Gonzales, “Crede Not Backing Down,” Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2005: 4, 3.

7 “Tale of the Videotape a Good One for Crede,” Chicago Tribune, September 16, 2005.

8 Melissa Isaacson, “Outstanding in His Field,” Chicago Tribune, July 2, 2006: 17, 5.

9 Tim Rohan, “With Giants in Series, One Rock Song Goes On and On and On and On,” New York Times, October 27, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/sports/baseball/with-sf-giants-in-world-series-2014-one-rock-song-goes-on-and-on-and-on-and-on.html.

10 Mark Gonzales, “Happy Camper: No Surgery, Pain,” Chicago Tribune, February 21, 2007: 4, 5.

11 Mark Gonzales, “White Sox Losing Crede, Not All Hope,” Chicago Tribune, June 13, 2007. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2007/06/13/white-sox-losing-crede-not-all-hope/

12 Scot Gregor, “Crede to Miss Rest of Season,” Arlington Heights (Illinois) Daily Herald, June 13, 2007: 2-3.

13 Jack Curry, “Crede Returns to the White Sox, but for How Long?” New York Times, April 25, 2008. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/sports/baseball/25whitesox.html.

14 Mark Gonzales, “Crede’s Back – for Now,” Chicago Tribune, February 17, 2008: B6.

15 Scot Gregor, “Crede’s Back – for How Long?,” Arlington Heights Daily Herald, February 16, 2008: Sports 1.

16 Associated Press, “Crede Depending on Second Opinion for His Return,” New York Times, September 13, 2008.

17 “Twins Add 3B Crede to Lineup,” ESPN.com, February 21, 2009. https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3923604.

18 Associated Press, “Crede to Have 3rd Back Surgery,” ESPN.com, September 20, 2009. https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=4489679.

19 Doug Padilla, “Crede Back in Chicago, Talks Glory Days,” ESPN.com, September 13, 2011.

20 Mark Gonzales, “Joe Crede Says Playing Through Back Pain Hasn’t Hurt Him Today,” Chicago Sun-Times, August 28, 2022.