Funniest quote I heard

"A home run to win a World Series game in extra innings--are you kidding me? It's not exactly a long list."

Sox infielder Geoff Blum, asked where his 14th-inning homer to win Game 3 of the World Series ranked on his list of memorable hits.

Second-guessing myself

I'm sorry I never got to meet Al Lopez. He was a baseball giant in Chicago, especially on the South Side, and his death came just four days after the White Sox completed their World Series sweep. I hope he enjoyed it.

My favorite story

The White Sox, from April through October. Before the World Series I was asked to write a piece for the Tribune's Perspective section on what it meant to have the World Series in Chicago. I tried to write it through the eyes of the greatest Sox fan I ever had known, my late father. Judging from the response, a lot of people came to baseball through the White Sox and their own fathers' attachment to them.

Best game I covered

There wasn't a single clunker among the Sox's 12-game postseason run, but Game 3 of the Boston series was tops for high drama. Orlando Hernandez sprinting to the mound in the sixth inning, then strutting off like pitching royalty after artfully working his way through a bases-loaded, no-out jam in a one-run game . . . "El Duque," indeed. "I knew he would bring cold blood," Ozzie Guillen said.

Play of the year

Juan Uribe going into the hole to throw out Coco Crisp on a bang-bang play at first base to preserve a 5-5 tie in the ninth inning of a Sox-Cleveland game on Sept. 20. The onrushing Indians would have swept the series and cut the Sox's lead to 1 1/2 games with a victory, but Joe Crede delivered a walkoff homer in the 10th and the entire South Side resumed breathing.

Most telling moment I saw off the field

Running into Mayor Daley in the Houston airport mere hours after the White Sox's World Series-clinching victory. He looked a little tired, and hired-truck and patronage scandals were nipping at his ankles, but the man could not stop smiling. The Sox had that effect on a lot of people I know.