One more win I was out for dinner last night with some friends and the restaurant was awash with an excited buzz as news fed through from the bar that the White Sox had stuffed the LA Angels 8-2 in the 4th game of the American League Championship Series.

They play in LA again tonight at 6.30pm Chicago time and one more win will take the Southsiders to the 'World Series' for the first time in 46 years. The two Chicago teams have contested 7 'World Series' finals since the Sox victory in 1917 and have lost every single one.

I'm a bit late with this story but a few months back the MLB announced that in March next year the first ever Baseball World Cup will take place. No American sports have any form of recognised competition involving other countries so this will be the first full-scale event involving major-league players representing their home countries. Importantly clubs will not be able to block any of their players from participating.

Australia, Canada, China, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Taiwan, the United States and Venezuela have been invited to participate. A question mark remains over Cuba, whose invitation must be cleared by the U.S. State Department and then subject to approval by Fidel Castro.

It will be interesting to see what the American public make of it. Only 9,000 turned up to celebrate the USA 'soccer' team's qualification to next year's finals on Wednesday when they defeated Panama in Boston.  ¶ 12:15