Chicago’s South Siders Found One Way to Blow Their Cover

The current issue of Sports Illustrated, officially dated Nov. 7, 2005, is already a collector’s item. Salvage it from the coffee table now. Wrap it in cellophane and store it away.

It will forever be remembered as The Week The SI Cover Jinx Turned On Itself.

On the cover of the Nov. 7 edition are large photos of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady flanking bold type worthy of, oh, I don’t know, maybe a long-maligned baseball team coming out of nowhere to win its first World Series championship in 88 years, something as over-the-top outrageous as that.

“THE DUEL” screams the bold type, trumpeting a game that has yet to be played, a game to be played on the first Monday of November, in the ninth week of a 17-week regular season, two months before the beginning of the playoffs, featuring one quarterback who has never played in a Super Bowl and another overseeing a team that is currently 4-3.

Just above Brady’s silver-helmeted head, squeezed onto the cover’s upper right-hand corner as almost an afterthought, is a tiny photo, barely the size of a quarter, of jubilant baseball players surrounded by the following text:

WORLD SERIES CHAMPS

CHICAGO WHITE SOX

Oh yeah. That little thing.

White Sox fans wait 88 years for the chance to make the cover of Sports Illustrated as World Series champions and they get bumped by a midseason interdivisional AFC game?

(And, yes, even though Sports Illustrated is only 51 years old, there were White Sox fans back in the ‘20s who assured themselves, “We know there’s no such thing as Sports Illustrated right now, but it sounds like a pretty good idea, and if there ever is one, and it’s still around by the time we next win the World Series, we hope our great-grandkids will be able to buy a copy and see our heroes’ smiling faces on the cover of Sports Illustrated!”)

Decades from now, when Sports Illustrated editors convene to celebrate the magazine’s 100th anniversary during its 99th year of existence, they will look at this cover and have a good laugh. Wow, Ozzie Guillen, our Sportsman of the Century, probably had something to say about that!

The SI cover will serve as a telling snapshot of the period, of what 2005 was all about from a sports media perspective.

Because of print deadlines, the White Sox actually did themselves a disservice by dispatching the Houston Astros too quickly -- in four games -- wrapping up the Series on a Wednesday. A full week would pass before the next SI edition would hit the stands. Had the White Sox stretched it to a Game 7 on Sunday, their victory would have stood a better chance of owning the cover.

Then again, the Boston Red Sox took a similar route in 2004 -- sweeping St. Louis and ending the Series on a Wednesday -- and SI gave them the next cover. Lessons to be gathered? SI prefers red socks over white, East Coast over South Side, and most certainly, Boston over Chicago.

The White Sox-Astros World Series also drew record-low television numbers, which didn’t help the White Sox cover hopes any.

Nor did the monstrous shadow the NFL casts over all other sports in the United States. Colts-Patriots on Monday night is surely a big deal for ABC, which probably won’t get this kind of PR push for its Nov. 21 matchup: Minnesota at Green Bay. And considering the one-sided recent history of the series, Colts-Patriots will interest even casual fans.

But, really, what is at stake Monday night?

If the Patriots win, the Colts will still be 7-1, two games ahead of 5-3 New England in the only race that matters -- for home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs.

If the Colts win, the Patriots slip to 4-4, still in fine shape to finish first in a very weak AFC East.

Meanwhile, the Chicago White Sox just won the World Series for the first time since 1917.

Worth noting: This week’s Sporting News gave this most improbable sporting news its due -- granting the White Sox the full-cover treatment along with a screaming bold “SWEEP!” White Sox fans might want to save that as a collector’s item as well.

Available for viewing this weekend:

TODAY

* UCLA at Arizona

(FSNW2, 3:15 p.m.)

Or, if you’re only interested in the good stuff, tune in around 6:15 p.m., in the middle of the fourth quarter, otherwise known as Bruin Time. Who knew that all Karl Dorrell needed to turn the program around was to turn every UCLA football game into a close approximation of an NBA game?

* Stanford at USC

(TBS, 7 p.m.)

To Stanford fans who assured themselves that things couldn’t get any worse after blowing a 24-3 fourth-quarter lead to UCLA in the same season the Cardinal lost to UC Davis, three words: Not. So. Fast.

* Miami at Virginia Tech

(ESPN, 4:45 p.m.)

It’s good to be Vick: Team ESPN, a.k.a. Virginia Tech, makes its third consecutive prime-time appearance on ESPN, which knows the tune-in value to any football game featuring a Vick at quarterback. Kid brother Marcus has the 2005 Hokies 8-0 and third-ranked in the nation. Sobering statistic for No. 5 Miami: Hokies are 28-1 whenever a Vick, Michael or Marcus, starts at quarterback for them.

SUNDAY

* New York Giants at San Francisco 49ers

(Channel 11, 1 p.m.)

Or to put it another way, 49er fans: It’s Eli Manning against Cody Pickett. Cries of concessionaires working the aisles at Monster Park will tell the story of this one: “Blindfolds! Get your blindfolds here!”

* Denver Nuggets at Lakers

(FSNW, 6:30 p.m.)

Rematch of the Lakers’ season opener, and heady times they were, back when everything clicked and Phil and Kobe were on the same page and everything seemed possible once more for the Lakers. That was, um, two games ago. Media reaction to the Lakers this season could be more entertaining than the Lakers themselves. To borrow from the late great Chick Hearn, the basketball won’t be the only thing yo-yoing up and down this Laker season.