As the 2006 season began, White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski was feeling pretty confident about a World Series defense, a fresh concept at the time in Chicago baseball.
General manager Kenny Williams and his staff had fortified the team with a trade for Jim Thome. Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf spent money to re-sign Paul Konerko. Maybe the 2005 whirlwind season that culminated in one of the most dominating runs in postseason history wouldn’t be a once-in-the-lifetime event. Could Chicago actually be home to a perennial World Series contender?
“Going into the year, I thought, ‘We have a better team this year than the team we had that won the World Series a year before,’” Pierzynski told me this week.