Remembering “El Duque” in the sixth

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If you were a Millennial Chicago sports fan raised on the South Side or cheering for the South Side baseball team, you were practically raised to be skeptical.

After Michael Jordan and the Bulls packed Grant Park for the last of their championship parades in 1998, the Second City went through a tough stretch.

The Bears toiled near the bottom in the NFL, and the Bulls went from Mount Everest to Death Valley almost overnight. The Blackhawks weren’t on television.

Baseball? Fuhgetaboutit.

Chicago – either side of town – hadn’t won a World Series since 1917 and hadn’t appeared in the Fall Classic since 1959. The 2000 White Sox cruised to an American League Central title, but were quickly swept by Seattle. It taught you one thing: never get too hyped for a team with “Chicago” emblazoned across its chest.

White Sox fans really knew this.

From 2001-2004 the White Sox finished second in the AL Central three times and third once. Those pesky Minnesota Twins were always too good. In the offseason before 2005, any hope of catching the Twins were quickly dashed. After losing Venezuelan slugger Magglio Ordóñez and watching the White Sox trade away Panamanian slugger Carlos “El Caballo” Lee, Sox fans were right to be skeptical.

But second-year manager Ozzie Guillén – as crazy as he seemed at times – pushed all the right buttons and the Sox rolled. They won their first game of the season and remained in first place the rest of the season.

Those pesky Twins? Nowhere to be found. Sure, Cleveland gave Sox fans a scare late in the season, but the Sox pulled out the division with 99 wins.

Their reward? A matchup with the defending World Series champion Red Sox, the team who had broken a curse of its own and had done the impossible – coming back from a 3-0 deficit against its hated-rival, the Yankees.

Manny Ramírez, David Ortíz and company in the American League Division Series? Gulp. The skepticism was back.

But, hey, this was the Sox with Ozzie. He was crazy, funny and knew what strings to pull and when.

So a 14-2 win in Game 1. Then a 5-4 win with a hint of good luck thanks to Tony Graffanino in Game 2.  Confidence was sky-high. A Division Series sweep in Boston? No sweat. Start planning the first downtown parade since His Airness and Co. were there.

Game 3 started and the White Sox backed up the confidence. They jumped out to a 2-0 lead and eventually led 4-2. My oh my, the White Sox are going to sweep the Red Sox and go to the ALCS.

Then the sixth inning happened. Freddy García gave up a bomb to Ramírez. Dámaso Marte came in relief and loaded the bases with no outs. Even the most anti-analytics person knows the likelihood of scoring in that situation is high.

So Ozzie brought in Orlando “El Duque” Hernández in relief.

Oh, brother. Ozzie, you know when to pull the strings, ¿pero El Duque?

El Duque had been dropped out of the rotation and had an 11.25 ERA over his final five starts. The skepticism came roaring back with a vengeance.

Parade? Pfft, the Red Sox were coming back. They did it against the mighty Yankees, so why couldn’t they do it against the lowly White Sox?

Every best and worst-case scenario ran through White Sox fans’ heads. Best case? The sixth inning ends with the game tied at 4. Worst? Well, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.

Red Sox captain Jason Varitek pinch-hit and was the first batter to face Hernández. Foul out to first base. Oh my, a grounder gets the Sox out of this. Graffanino, the goat of Game 2, was up. He popped out to shortstop Juan Uribe.

Two outs. Is El Duque really going to do it?

No, no way. Johnny Damon, a hero in 2004 for the Red Sox, would surely find a gap and tie it up or worse.

Right on cue, things became dramatic. The count was full and the stakes were high. It’s what any kid imagines in his or her backyard.

El Duque, seemingly miraculously, prevailed. The forkball, which was his bread and butter when he first arrived in the big leagues, struck out Damon.

He had done it. He really had. The wind was sucked out of Fenway Park. You could tell that through the ESPN broadcast and through the shock that spilled out of Chris Berman’s mouth as Damon struck out.

The Sox hung on (and added a run) to win 5-3 and sweep the mighty Red Sox.

Surely, it was a sign from the baseball gods; the Sox were going to do it. They had to. You don’t get in a bases-loaded jam with no outs and come out unscathed.

It really was the White Sox year. They lost Game 1 in the ALCS to the Anaheim Angels, but they then ripped off eight straight wins to win their first World Series title in 88 years.

As any good Mexican-American is taught, si se puede. Y los White Sox pudieron.

Ozzie pulled the right strings. The Sox did the impossible.

Skepticism, at least for one White Sox fan, died with one El Duque Hernández forkball.

Featured Image: Christian Petersen / Getty Images Sport