Every Year, a Miracle

This time it could be the White Sox, led by a loopy manager who showed a team of castoffs how to win

October in Chicago can be the cruelest month, and we're not talking weather. For 88 years it has been a final resting place for the World Series dreams of both the White Sox and Cubs, an epically painful calendar of defeat pockmarked by Bartman (the dopey fan who may have cost the Cubs the pennant in 2003) and the "Black Sox" (the team that threw the 1919 Series). The record had been equaled only by the Boston Red Sox, whose curse-crushing triumph last year proved that nobody can lose forever. So as the White Sox legions watched their team's opening games against...

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