Konerko 2005 ALCS Game 7 Walk-Off HR vs Red Sox

Lore & Background

In Game 7 of the 2005 ALCS, Paul Konerko hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 8th inning at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. The White Sox had not reached the World Series since 1959.

In Their Own Story

The Fenway Park night air was cool and thick with smoke from the hot dogs and the tension. Ten innings of nothing. Two runs apiece. The Sox bench huddled in the dugout, Guillen's face a mask of controlled fury. Konerko rolled his shoulders, spat, and walked to the plate. The crowd noise was a physical wall. He set his feet, the pitcher wound up, and Konerko's bat connected with a sound like a car door slamming. The ball rose, impossibly high, impossibly far, and the Fenway crowd went from a roar to a dead, ringing silence. It cleared the Monster. It kept going. Konerko jogged the bases, the Sox dugout erupted, and somewhere in a South Side apartment a kid in a pinstripe jersey was screaming so loud his mother grabbed his shoulders. The White Sox were going to the World Series. Nobody in Boston could believe it. Everybody in Chicago already knew.

Reader's Guide

Konerko did not spend his entire major league career with the White Sox; he began with the Los Angeles Dodgers and also played for the Cincinnati Reds. The 2005 White Sox defeated the Houston Astros 4–0 to win the World Series.

Did You Know?

• The 2005 ALCS was between the Chicago White Sox and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, not the Boston Red Sox.
• The walk-off home run occurred in the bottom of the 8th inning, not the bottom of the 10th; the game was not in extra innings.
• The White Sox had not reached the World Series since 1959, not 1983.
• Konerko began his major league career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and also played for the Cincinnati Reds.
• The 2005 White Sox swept the Houston Astros in the World Series, ending the 88-year-long Curse of the Black Sox championship drought.