2005 Chicago White Sox World Series Baseball Championship Ring

2005 Chicago White Sox World Series  Baseball Championship Ring

The 2005 World Series was the 101st edition of Major League Baseball's championship series, a best-of-seven playoff between the American League (AL) champions Chicago White Sox and the National League (NL) champions Houston Astros.[1] The White Sox swept the Astros four games to none in the series, winning their third World Series championship and their first in 88 seasons. Despite the series being a sweep, all four games were quite close, with two games decided by one run each and the other two games by two runs each.

Home-field advantage was awarded to Chicago by virtue of the American League's 7–5 victory over the National League in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. The Astros were attempting to become the fourth consecutive wild card team to win the Series, following the Anaheim Angels (2002), Florida Marlins (1997 and 2003) and Boston Red Sox (2004). Both teams were attempting to overcome decades of disappointment: the Astros were making their first Series appearance in 44 years of play, while the White Sox had waited exactly twice as long for a title, having last won the Series in 1917, and had not been in the Series since 1959, three years before the Astros' inaugural season.

Like the 1982 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers, the 2005 World Series is one of only two World Series in the modern era (1903–present) with no possibility for a rematch between the two opponents, due to the Astros moving to the American League in 2013. However, the Brewers did meet the Cardinals in the 2011 National League Championship Series.