On Sunday afternoon, Ozzie Guillen posed an informal question to some reporters hanging around the dugout.
"Did you see (Johan) Santana last night?" he asked. Santana threw a complete game win the night before to keep the Mets in contention for the playoffs. "He has big balls. (C.C.) Sabathia too. I need some pitchers like that."
A few hours later, Mark Buehrle threw seven strong innings on three days' rest. The next day Gavin Floyd threw six more in another must-win. The day after that, John Danks threw eight shutout innings to send the White Sox, reeling and lifeless just last week, into the playoffs for the first time since 2005. All three pitchers were on three days' rest, making their performances all the more amazing.
Danks, who has impressed his team all season with his bulldog mentality, was all gonads Tuesday, pitching the game of the year for the Sox, as they beat the Twins in a 1-0 heart-stopper to clinch the AL Central in the 163rd game of the year, and give Chicago two playoff teams for the first time in 102 years.
Jim Thome may have provided the offense with a solo home run and Ken Griffey Jr., Brian Anderson and A.J. Pierzynski had defensive highlights. But this one belongs to Danks, who gave the Sox with what they've been missing lately, and exactly what Guillen wanted.
"I don't know if I can say it on TV, but he showed a lot of...heart," Nick Swisher told the cameras afterward.
Heart. Right. That's the ticket.
***
As Alexi Casilla came to the plate with two outs in the ninth, Guillen started waving madly at his defense from the dugout.
"What's he doing," my wife asked me.
"Is that how he always signals the defense?" I said. "Don't they have signals for that?"
Guillen's wild gesticulations worked. Facing Bobby Jenks, Casilla hit a blooper to center and a diving Anderson, already playing up, made the catch, winning the division and setting off the kind of celebration that was missing in 2005, when the Sox clinched every milestone on the road.
Now it's on to St. Petersburg, where the Tampa Bay Rays await. Chicago-Tampa Bay. Just like they drew it up, right?
Tuesday's win was reminiscent of 2005, when the White Sox gutted out so many close wins with pitching, defense and one big hit. In some ways, it was fitting that Thome delivered that big hit, sending his deep blast to center in the seventh.
Thome was brought to Chicago in a post-World Series shakeup to give the often-erratic lineup some more punch. But aside from hitting his 500th homer last year, and living near his Peoria home, there haven't been too many highlights for the aging slugger, just a lot of work.
Thome has to arrive hours earlier than his peers to work out his chronically cranky back. I once walked by him as he was on his back in the visitor's tunnel at Wrigley Field getting his treatment, lying on a floor hasn't been cleaned since the Woodrow Wilson administration. But Thome doesn't complain.
Tuesday was a great day for the old guys, as two 500 home run club members helped pave the way to the post-season, and perhaps their last shot at the brass ring.
Griffey, who had done little since coming over from Cincinnati at the trade deadline, teamed up with Pierzynski for the defensive play of the game, throwing out Michael Cuddyer at the plate in the fifth.
Griffey caught Brendan Harris' fly ball in shallow center and Cuddyer took off, testing the 38-year-old's arm. Griffey threw a perfect one-hop strike to Pierzynski, who held on as Cuddyer bowled into him. Pierzynski popped up, showed the ball to the ump and Cuddyer and raced into the dugout. It was vintage A.J. Guillen may question Pierzynski's personality, but never his manhood.
Anderson had replaced Griffey in the seventh as a pinch-runner. While Thome's arrival didn't fill the trophy case, Anderson is practically the poster boy for the Sox's fall from grace since 2005.
The tow-headed, fun-loving outfielder was slotted to fill fan favorite Aaron Rowand's spot in center, when Rowand was dealt to Philadelphia for Thome. But Anderson faltered badly at the plate in 2006, spent most of 2007 in the minors and made no friends with Sox management by making demands to be traded. The Sox brought him back and Anderson spent all of 2008 in Chicago in a reserve role. This was his redemption. This was his moment, too.
***
Alexei Ramirez, the revolutionary (pardon the pun) second baseman they call the "Cuban Missile", had his moment the day before. Ramirez came into his rookie year with a little hype, but overall, there were low expectations for this man of mystery, the painfully skinny, power-hitting infielder with hands that both deftly handle ground balls and send his bat flying through the zone.
Ramirez's grand slam, amazingly enough his fourth of the season, was the play of Monday's blowout win over Detroit, the New Year's blast that sent the Sox into Tuesday's play-in game. After he hit it, crushed it really, I had that feeling the Sox weren't quite done yet. (Then I ate too much brisket and I was feeling something altogether different in my stomach.)
This all felt familiar - the clutch, no-room-for-error White Sox wins, not the brisket. Sure there were some different faces, some different stakes than three years ago. But it was so 2005, when every ball bounced the White Sox's way and that maligned park on the South Side was the center of the baseball world.
***
Of course, the Cell isn't even the center of Chicago's baseball world this year. I was at that place, Wrigley Field, Tuesday for the Cubs-Dodgers workout, where pre-game interviews consisted of finding a dozen different ways to ask someone how it feels to do something they haven't done yet.
The news of the day was Lou Piniella's contract extension. The Cubs picked up his club option for 2010, which, by definition, isn't really news at all this year. But Piniella had told a New York columnist he was getting tired with the grind, so this was just a way to squash retirement talk. If Piniella were a college football coach, they would've extended him to 2030.
The importance of this series wasn't lost on the Cubs, who were surrounded by a phalanx of camera crews in their locker room. The pressure is mounting on the North Side, where nothing short of a World Series championship will assuage their long-suffering fans.
While the Sox started their game on the South Side, Wrigleyville was quiet. I walked down Sheffield, calm as it gets, around 7 p.m. after leaving Wrigley. The street was still clean. There was no mayhem, no stumbling masses awaiting their baseball epiphany. That mess comes Wednesday. How long it will last is up to a Cubs team that is as deep and talented as any contender in recent years. There is a feeling that their destiny is solely up to them. Of course that was the feeling in 2003, and we all know how that worked out.
But this isn't a time for a history lesson. No games have been played yet. The streets are clean and anything is possible.
Two teams. Two great stories. One city that is second to no one.