Scott Podsednik

Scott Podsednik made his money stealing bases, distracting defenses, and putting pitchers off their game, but it’s his unlikely and now legendary walk-off home run to win Game Two of the 2005 World Series that he’s most remembered for and that will forever endear him to White Sox fans.

The Chicago White Sox had gone ahead of the Houston Astros in the seventh inning on another legendary homer, a grand slam by Paul Konerko. But the Astros took the air out of the home crowd by tying it in the top of the ninth. In the bottom of the inning, Podsednik – a speedy leadoff hitter who hadn’t hit a single home run in the regular season and was 0-for-4 that night – came up facing Brad Lidge, then one of the dominant closers in baseball. With his mind on a single and a plan to steal second on the first pitch, Podsednik instead hit a blast into the first few rows of seats in right-center. It set off delirium at what was then US Cellular Field and fueled momentum for a White Sox sweep that brought a World Series championship to the South Side of Chicago for the first time since 1917.

Podsednik, a lefty-batting, lefty-throwing outfielder, had an 11-season major-league career. He hit .281 lifetime, led the majors in steals and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2003, and was an American League All-Star in 2005. But it was the improbable homer on a damp and cold Chicago night that gives him a place among the most storied White Sox moments of all time. An MLB.com story rating the top 10 moments at US Cellular Field rated Podsednik’s walk-off at the top.1 Next was Konerko’s grand slam.

In 2007, when a seat-replacement project was completed at the ballpark, two of the light blue originals were left where they were to mark the spots where Podsednik’s and Konerko’s homers landed. The walk-off bat went to the Hall of Fame. “To have a bat of mine going to the Hall of Fame, that’s pretty special,” said Podsednik, who wasn’t known for his power. “If that doesn’t define irony, I don’t know what does.”2

Scott Eric Podsednik (pronounced Puh-sed-nick, despite various nicknames that pronounce the first syllable as pod) was born on March 18, 1976, to Duane and Amy Podsednik in West, Texas. This was not West Texas as in the sprawling region home to more than 2 million Texans in 70 counties, but West, Texas, a town of fewer than 3,000 people about two hours’ drive south of Dallas. It’s known for kolaches, a sweet Czech pastry that immigrant settlers brought with them. There are knowing travelers who wouldn’t think of passing by on I-35 without pulling off for kolaches.

The Podsedniks are part of West’s large Czech community. Scott’s father worked at a glass plant in Waco, which is about an hour away, and his mother worked for the school district. His sister, Shana, his only sibling, married Kevin Mench, who played eight seasons in the major leagues, mainly for the Texas Rangers.

In 2008 Podsednik married Lisa Dergan, a well-known sports television personality and model in the 2000s. The couple divorced in 2017. They have two children, a daughter, Peytra, and a son, Nixon.

Podsednik played 19 seasons of professional baseball, including nine persistent, often injury-affected seasons in the minor leagues for three different organizations before breaking into the majors with the Seattle Mariners. He had a handful of appearances with Seattle in 2001 and 2002. His first major-league appearance was July 6, 2001, as a pinch-runner for Ichiro Suzuki, but his official major-league rookie year wasn’t until 2003 with the Milwaukee Brewers.

His 11 seasons in the majors came with seven teams – the Mariners, Brewers, White Sox, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Boston Red Sox.

Podsednik was a speedster at every level of his athletic career. He played baseball and basketball and ran track at West High School, graduating in 1994. In his junior year he finished second in the 300-meter hurdles in the Texas 2A classification.

He turned down college track scholarships when the Rangers picked him out of high school in the third round of the June 1994 amateur draft. Just 18 years old, he began his professional baseball career in Port Charlotte, Florida, with the Rangers’ team in the rookie Gulf Coast League.

In several interviews, Podsednik described himself as a “deer in the headlights” that first summer and a few after it. “I went to a really small high school and was somewhat sheltered there,” he told interviewer Chuck Garfien on an episode of the White Sox Talk podcast. “I was a good athlete, I could run, I had good hands, but using all of that out on the baseball field, I didn’t know how to do yet.”3

In Podsednik’s first four years in the minors, his numbers improved every year, but he didn’t progress past Class A. That first year in Florida he hit .228 and stole 18 bases. The next year, with Hudson Valley in the Class-A New York-Pennsylvania League, his average edged up to .266 and he swiped 20 bases, but Texas traded him to the Florida Marlins after the season.

After the 1997 season, the Rangers reacquired Podsednik through the Rule 5 draft. He got some time at Double-A Tulsa in 1998 but spent most of the year in long-season Class A. Injuries held him back the next two seasons. Still in the Rangers farm system, in 1999, he appeared in just 42 games, and in 2000, just 49.

“I was doing so bad I was considering shutting it down, (but coaches) were like, ‘You can play, you are talented.’ So from that point forward, I started asking why,” he said. “‘Why am I rolling over this pitch? Why am I getting injured? Why is my footwork bad?’ … I wanted to play big-league baseball. I grew up wanting to do that. I started asking why and then it became an obsession.”4

Podsednik’s speed continued to get him chances. When Texas released him after the 2000 season, he signed with the Mariners and was invited to his first big-league spring training. The questions and introspection began to help him define his playing style, he told Garfien. “In 2001, which was my first big league spring training – with Seattle – I had a pretty good year … and started gaining some confidence. I had no confidence in the minor leagues.”5

Podsednik spent most of 2001 with the Mariners’ Triple-A team in Tacoma. That was Seattle’s 116-win season, tough to break through for a roster spot. He was called up for about two weeks in July, playing mostly as a defensive substitute, and his first major-league at-bat was the stuff of dreams, literally. Manager Lou Piniella called on him to pinch-hit for Ed Sprague with the bases loaded in the seventh inning against Erik Sabel of the Arizona Diamondbacks. He sliced a triple into the left-center-field gap, clearing the bases.

Although Podsednik played in only five games with the Mariners during their historic 2001 season, he just missed making history on his own, and it cost him money. An unbylined notes column on TribLive.com a week after the triple reported that “even though outfielder Steve Finley bobbled the ball, Podsednik hit the brakes when third-base coach Dave Myers held up the stop sign. It was a prudent decision. But it cost Podsednik a chance to become the first player in major-league history to hit an inside-the-park grand slam in his first big-league at-bat. So Podsednik and Myers were fined when the Mariners’ kangaroo court met later in the clubhouse. ‘The kid’s got to go down in the book (of fines),’ said catcher Tom Lampkin, one of the veterans who runs the court. ‘We’re talking about history here. You’ve got to send him.’”6

The triple also showed Podsednik what it’s like to get a big-league crowd on its feet. He stayed in the game after the pinch hit and when he went out to left field the next inning, he got a standing ovation. “I had electricity flowing through me. With 50,000 people hollering and screaming, I can’t describe it. It’s something I’ve been dreaming about since I was a young kid,” he said.7

As if the cake needed any more icing, the game was on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball telecast. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan were calling it and did right by Podsednik’s moment:

“You never forget your first major-league hit,” said Morgan, who noted his surprise that with two out, Podsednik got the stop sign at third. “You’ll fall asleep thinking about it the next 30 or 40 years.”

“I’ll never forget it” Miller replied.8

Podsednik had solid seasons with Tacoma both years in the Mariners organization but didn’t make much of the slim opportunities he did get with the big club. In 2001 the nearly historic triple was his only hit in five games and six at-bats. In 2002 he hit .200 while up for 14 games in September. He had only 20 at-bats, but one resulted in a homer.

The 2002 season was Podsednik’s last extended stint in the minors. He hit .279 in 125 games with Tacoma and stole 35 bases. He was also caught stealing 13 times, but that, too, was a part of the process that would eventually serve him in the majors. He was 26 years old that season and learning what it meant to be a leadoff hitter and a base thief.

“I’m a pretty introverted, shy guy and I did not play with swagger,” Podsednik told Garfien on the White Sox Talk podcast. “… I had to come out of my shell and change my personality to be the leadoff hitter I needed to be. The leadoff is a guy who provides energy, provides spark, gets things cranked up. I looked in the mirror and thought, ‘Well, you’re just this introverted, shy guy. That’s not going to cut it.’

“I remember, Greg Walker (longtime White Sox first baseman and later the hitting coach when Podsednik played in Chicago), he would always talk about swagger. He knew me and he could always tell when I was playing careful. … And to be a basestealer, you have to play the game with no fear. You have to take a risk; you have to get out there and fly by the seat of your pants. … And that started happening around (those) 2001, 2002 years. I had a full season and had a full year of at-bats and I started gaining some traction and gaining some confidence.

“That word was big for me: ‘swagger.’ (You have to) take the field like you’re the best player in the ballpark. You might rub some people the wrong way, the opposition is going to hate you, but I had to do that to be my best and reach my potential as a player.”9

After the 2002 season, Podsednik was claimed off waivers by the Brewers. He played winter ball in Puerto Rico and hit .467. When the 2003 season started, he was 27 and on the cusp of a breakout year.

Podsednik started the season on the Brewers’ bench but got his shot early on. “I showed up to the park and found out I was in the lineup. I thought it was odd because we were facing Shawn Estes, who’s a lefty, so I thought, ‘Something is up here,’” Podsednik explained. During stretching, he heard from a teammate that the Brewers were considering making a change from their everyday center fielder, Álex Sánchez. “‘They are going to run you out there for a few days.’ I immediately (thought), ‘This is it.’ I’d spent a long time in professional baseball and I knew the window of opportunity is a small one. I knew this was my shot. I went 0-for-4 that night. … The next night I think I hit a home run in like the seventh that tied the game.” Soon after that, the Brewers traded Sánchez to the Tigers to open the center-field spot. “And that’s how it happened.”10

Podsednik went on to hit .314 that season, steal 43 bases, score 100 runs, and run up an OPS value of .822. He finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting in the National League, losing out to pitcher Dontrelle Willis, who won 14 games for the Marlins.

Podsednik gave former Brewers first-base coach Dave Nelson a lot of credit for making him think and act like a basestealer, melding fearlessness, attention to technique, and the study of pitchers.

“I got to Milwaukee in ’03, and Dave was like, ‘Hey, you got to get out there and run. If you run well enough to impact the game with your legs, you can’t be scared.’ Dave really helped me a lot. He taught me about getting leads, some footwork and some technical aspects. … He really impacted my career. … Playing with that swagger and fearlessness, I played well and stole a lot of bases (and realized) this is what I’m here to do and I can impact ballgames.”11

In 2004, his second full season in the majors, Podsednik took a step back at the plate, with a 70-point drop in batting average to .244, but he led the major leagues in steals with 70, a full 25 more than National League runner-up Juan Pierre, and 11 more than Tampa Bay’s Carl Crawford, who led the American League with 59.

Meantime, in Chicago second-year manager Ozzie Guillén was remaking his club to be faster and more athletic and was willing to give up power to do it. That winter the White Sox traded slugging outfielder Carlos Lee to the Brewers for Podsednik and reliever Luis Vizcaíno. As it turned out, both Lee and Podsednik were All-Stars in their leagues that year.

In the 2005 championship season, Podsednik hit .290 in the leadoff spot and was often the guy who got things going. Guillén called him the “igniter.” He was on his way to leading the majors in steals again but was slowed in the second half by a groin injury and time on the disabled list. He finished second in the American League to Chone Figgins, who stole 62 bases for the Angels and led the majors. At the All-Star break, Podsednik already had 44 and ended the season with 59.

When Podsednik was healthy and liberally using the green light Guillén had given him (Podsednik also led the league in caught-stealing that year and the next), it could change the character of the game. “Once Scott gets on, the defense is moving all around, holes are opening up all over the place, guys are cheating to the bag, catchers are edgy, moving around behind the dish, not really giving the umpire a chance to see pitches. He changes the whole outlook of the game,” said Tim Raines, the White Sox’ first-base coach.12 Raines stole 808 bases in his career, ranking him fifth all-time.

In a New York Times profile on Podsednik that summer, Piniella, his first major-league manager at Seattle, talked about the challenge of facing speed. Then managing the Tampa Bay Rays, Piniella said of Podsednik, “Oh, he’s disruptive. He makes the pitcher really concentrate, and he takes attention away from the hitter. And then, because of fear of him stealing, the rest of the batting order sees more fastballs than breaking balls. And then the infield has to shift a little differently, open wider holes in the defense. That’s what speed can do for you. And a good leadoff batter – and Podsednik is one of the few really good ones in baseball – is the catalyst for any team. I tell my pitchers: ‘Just don’t let him get on base. Make sure you don’t walk him. He’s going to have to hit his way on if he’s going to get on.’”13

The 2005 season was the only time Podsednik appeared in the postseason and he put up strong numbers, hitting .286 with three triples, two home runs, and six RBIs. He stole six bases in nine attempts and compiled a .948 OPS. He already had good looks to go with his polite charm, Texas accent, and mad dashes on the basepaths, but the Game Two walk-off raised his profile considerably. When the White Sox made a team appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show the same day as their downtown Series victory parade, Podsednik was one of the players Winfrey spoke to individually. “Is this your wildest dream?” she asked.

“Comin’ on the Oprah Show, or winning the World Series?” Podsednik replied wryly as the studio audience broke up and Winfrey beamed.14

Soon after that, Podsednik had a speaking part on Saturday Night Live, being interviewed by former Chicagoans Tina Fey and Amy Poehler for the Weekend Update segment. The gag was for Podsednik to out the former North Siders as bandwagon White Sox fans. Later, when he was breaking into television as a studio analyst, he told interviewer and historian George Castle of the Chicago Baseball Museum that those appearances, and the added media attention after the Series, helped him have the confidence to try being a television analyst after he was done playing, despite his shy nature.

The next several seasons after the World Series, Podsednik established a hard-won journeyman label. The groin injury in the second half of the championship season followed him the next two seasons as well. In 2006 he played in just 139 games for the Sox. His average fell to .261 but he managed to steal 40 bases. Then 2007 was worse. Still bothered by groin problems, he played in just 62 games for the White Sox, hit .243, and stole 12 bases. The White Sox released him after that.

Reflecting on the role of injuries on his career, Podsednik has said he worked hard in the offseasons but not effectively for what his body needed in order to stand up to what he put it through. “I wasn’t doing the right things. I was not doing the things that my body needed specifically. … So I kept getting injured.” The 2006 and 2007 seasons were the worst of his career, Podsednik said. “I was injured and not in any type of shape to play whatsoever,” he told Garfien. After that he sought out the help of specialists to develop training that fit him specifically, he said. “I was in my mid-30s and needed some counsel.” He said one person he worked with told him he had a “Ferrari engine, but a Honda Civic frame. You have horsepower, but you weren’t strong in the right areas to withstand the horsepower.”15

Defensively, Podsednik never won a Gold Glove and is often referred to as an average outfielder. As of 2024, Baseball Reference noted that he ranked 69th (tied with four others) among all outfielders since 1953 in the category of Total Zone Runs, a formula that uses four other metrics to determine what the Baseball Reference glossary describes as the “number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on the number of plays made.” He led the National League in the category in 2004. He also had high numbers for range in several years and led the National League in putouts in 2004. But he also led American League left fielders in errors (8) in 2006.

Before the 2008 season, Podsednik signed a minor-league contract with the Colorado Rockies, which included an invitation to spring training. He made the Opening Day roster and appeared in 93 games for Colorado, hitting. 253. He played sparingly in left field, where Matt Holliday was the regular, and platooned some in center. Nearly half his appearances involved pinch-hitting (57 at-bats) or pinch-running.

Podsednik was a free agent for 2009 and signed again with the Rockies but was released just before Opening Day. He wasn’t idle for long. The White Sox signed him to a minor-league contract two weeks later and he began the year at Triple-A Charlotte. He was called up on April 30.

The Chicago homecoming was good for the White Sox and for Podsednik, who batted leadoff much of the season and went on to hit .304 and steal 30 bases in 132 games. Injuries to outfielders Brian Anderson and Carlos Quentin increased his playing time. Then 33 and a free agent, he had extended negotiations with the White Sox after that season, but they didn’t result in a deal, and in January he signed with the Kansas City Royals. He put together another solid offensive year in 2010, splitting time between the Royals and the Dodgers. He was hitting .310 with 30 stolen bases in late July when the Royals traded him to the Dodgers. The Royals weren’t contending for a playoff spot and the Dodgers were within striking distance in the National League West Division. He played left field and some center for the Dodgers but was slowed by a painful plantar fasciitis condition in his left foot. He played in just 39 games for the Dodgers and missed most of the last month of the season with his foot problem.

The 2011 season was essentially a lost year, at least in part because of ongoing foot problems. The Dodgers had exercised a $2 million option to secure Podsednik for 2011, but he passed on it in favor of free agency. He didn’t attract the interest he might have expected and eventually signed a minor-league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays but continued to deal with plantar fasciitis and was released in May. He signed another minor-league deal, this time with the Philadelphia Phillies, but played in just 17 minor-league games in the farm system. All told, he appeared in only 34 minor-league games that season, dealing with injury and shuttling between four Toronto and Philadelphia farm clubs.

Podsednik’s last season as a player was 2012, spent mostly with the Boston Red Sox. He began the year with Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia’s team in the Triple-A International League, but in mid-May the Phils sold his contract to the Red Sox, who had five injured outfielders early in the year, including Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury. In July the Red Sox traded him to Arizona. He had yet to appear in a game for the Diamondbacks when in late July they elected to send him to Triple A. Podsednik declined the assignment and became a free agent.

He was idle only a week or so before the Red Sox brought him back for his second stint of 2012. After a slow start, he got hot and ended the year hitting .302 in 63 games. He stole eight bases. Podsednik played his last major-league game on October 3 at the age of 36. There was no formal retirement announcement, but he didn’t play in the majors again.

Podsednik hasn’t gotten too far from baseball. From 2017 through the 2024 season, he was a pregame and postgame studio analyst, part of NBC Sports Chicago’s studio team that included Garfien as host and ex-Sox notables Guillén, Frank Thomas, and Gordon Beckham. After the 2024 season, NBC Sports Chicago ceased broadcasting and was sold to another group. The new ownership did not immediately announce broadcast plans.

In a 2017 interview, Podsednik said he still thought of himself as shy and introverted and never considered broadcasting as a second career until it was proposed to him. Perhaps he saw a second career in broadcasting in the same way he saw his shot with the Brewers his rookie season: “I thought to myself there’s no way I would pass up this opportunity. Obviously, they had enough confidence in me going in. I felt I had nothing to lose, let’s go see what this is about, talk some baseball and see if I enjoy doing it.”16

He still heard about the walk-off all the time, he said. “When I’m in Chicago, probably not a day goes by where I’m not talking about it with someone, which is fine. That is obviously the highlight of my career. It doesn’t get old. It gives me goose bumps to talk about it no matter what.

“I catch myself looking up (at photos from the World Series that hang in his office) and saying, ‘How in the world did I run into that ball?’ I only hit 42 homers in my career and none in the regular season (that year). How in the world did you weasel your way into hitting one in the World Series?’

“It was not supposed to come off my bat. Thinking back to it, I wasn’t thinking home run, I wasn’t looking to hit a home run. I was ahead in the count 2-and-1, and I was looking to put a good swing on the ball. Fortunately, I got a perfect pitch right out over the plate. I put as good a swing as I could on it and didn’t miss it.”17

Last revised: April 1, 2025

Sources

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

Machann, Clinton. “Czech Immigrants,” https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/czechs.

Merkin, Scott. “Guaranteed Rate Field’s Top 10 Moments,” https://www.mlb.com/news/guaranteed-rate-field-best-moments, accessed November 14, 2024.

Visale, Joe. “Catching Up: Q&A with Scott Podsednik,” https://www.milb.com/news/catching-up-q-a-with-scott-podsednik, accessed November 14, 2024.

Illinois Sports Facilities Authority. https://www.isfauthority.com/facilities/guaranteed-rate-field-renovations/, accessed November 14, 2024.

Notes

1 Scott Merkin, “Guaranteed Rate Field’s Top 10 Moments,” MLB.com. December 1, 2021. https://www.mlb.com/news/guaranteed-rate-field-best-moments. Accessed November 14, 2024.

2 Mark Gonzales, “Suddenly a Hall of a Hitter,” Chicago Tribune, October 25, 2005. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2005/10/25/suddenly-a-hall-of-a-hitter/.

3 Chuck Garfien, “Podsednik Advice for White Sox Prospects Hoping for a Major League Career,” Sox Talk Podcast (NBC Sports Chicago) May 9, 2024. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scott-podsedniks-advice-for-white-sox-prospects-hoping/id1162163703?i=1000655038437.

4 Garfien interview.

5 Garfien interview.

6 https://triblive.com/search/?search=rookie+just+following+orders.

7 Jim Moore, “Rookie Makes Impression in First At Bat,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 15, 2001. https://www.seattlepi.com/sports/baseball/article/rookie-makes-impression-in-first-at-bat-1059930.php.

8 “Diamondbacks vs. Mariners 7-15-01< From YouTube channel This Is Where You Find Baseball, https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=mariners+game+notes+july+15%2c+2001&mid=69390CF0AD757BDDCA9269390CF0AD757BDDCA92&FORM=VIRE.

9 Garfien interview.

10 Garfien interview.

11 Garfien interview.

12 Daniel Habib, “Stealing the Show,” Sports Illustrated, October 31, 2005. https://vault.si.com/vault/2005/08/15/stealing-the-show. Ira Berkow, “The Art of the Steal: Podsednik Keeps Pitchers on Edge,” New York Times, July 11, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/sports/baseball/the-art-of-the-steal-podsednik-keeps-pitchers-on-edge.html.

14 https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/chicago-celebrates/all.

15 Garfien interview.

16 George Castle, “Podsednik Shakes Off Shyness to Analyze Sox with Garfien, Melton on CSN Chicago,” Chicago Baseball Museum, May 18, 2017, https://chicagobaseballmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/CBM-Scott-Podsednik-20170518.pdf.

17 Castle interview.