A Fiddler on the Roof

"I need to get a new life. I sat and watched the Weather Channel all day."

Commissioner Bud (10-Day Forecast) Selig

HOUSTON -- From Chicago to Houston to all other points of the baseball compass, the White Sox are now seen as a team blessed by fortune, touched by destiny and invincible to all the normal forces of the game. In other words, as the White Sox try to finish off a victory in this year's World Series, the whole sport is calling them just plain lucky.

After a franchise waits 88 years to win a World Series, is that fair?

Absolutely not. Before this Series ends, which may be soon, everybody needs to get a grip and give the White Sox their proper respect. After Tuesday night's 7-5 victory in Game 3, Chicago has won 10 of 11 postseason games -- not because Bartolo Colon and Roger Clemens got hurt or because umpires have missed at least three important calls that went the White Sox' way. Most of all, if they win this Series, it will not be because of the bizarre issue that surrounded Tuesday's Game 3. No, the White Sox are not going to win because Bud Selig ordered the Astros to open the roof of Minute Maid Park, where Houston was 40-17 this season indoors, including the playoffs, but 15-11 when exposed to fresh air.

All of the Sox' good luck has indisputably helped their cause. Why, without the breaks, Chicago might only be 10-3 this October, not 10-1. But let's not get hysterical. The White Sox swept the Red Sox. They blitzed the Angels in five games. And they won the first three games of this Series, including one of the sport's more dramatic walk-off wins in Game 2. They've had breaks. But this isn't a lucky world title we're watching.

However, in seeking full credit for their deeds, Tuesday's controversy du jour will not help the White Sox case. Before the game, every newspaper in both Houston and Chicago was full of stories about how the team had, in the words of pitcher Mark Buehrle: "Everything going our way. The balls are landing our way. The calls are going our way. . . . Everything you look at, how can't we win this thing?"

And now the sport's hand-wringing commissioner, despite all the good integrity-of-the-game intentions in the world, has added to the evidence of a conspiracy by the baseball gods.

Ever since the White Sox won Game 2 on Sunday night on Scott Podsednik's walk-off ninth-inning home run in the miserable South Side mist, the Astros did nothing but talk about how glad they'd be to get home to their indoor park, where they have learned to love the enormous volume of fan noise.

Normally, no team admits that it needs an oddball advantage to win. But the Astros fell right into that tar pit of psychological mischief, starting with Manager Phil Garner and including an extensive dissertation on the subject by normally monosyllabic starting pitcher Roy Oswalt. Talk about setting yourself up.

"We've played with it closed most of the year. I find it strange that somebody would say we have to have it open now," said Garner when the possibility of a open-roof MLB edict was mentioned. "Bottom line, it does generate a lot of noise and it's a lot of fun. We play for that excitement and noise. It helps us a little bit."