Chicago ? Their second celebration in a little more a week behind them, the White Sox came home Saturday to await their first trip to the AL Championship Series since 1993, two years before wild cards were added.

They’ve been hearing a lot about history lately. The subject popped up when they clinched the AL Central with a league-best 99 victories and again when they swept the defending champion Boston Red Sox.

They’ve heard how the franchise hasn’t played in a World Series since 1959, hasn’t won a title since 1917 – the last time until Friday the White Sox had even captured a playoff series – and even about the 1919 World Series when eight players were charged with conspiring to fix the outcome.

Enough, already.

“This team is the 2005 White Sox. It’s not trying to change what’s happened in the past and all that,” said first baseman Paul Konerko, whose homer Friday propelled the White Sox to a 5-3 victory. “We’re just trying to be this team, play our best and see what happens.”

After staggering through September and nearly losing a 15-game lead that dwindled to 11â2, the White Sox have more than regrouped. They won their final five regular-season games and will take an eight-game winning streak overall against the Yankees or Angels.

Surviving the shaky stretch, when the words “collapse” and “choke” were being mentioned daily, seems to have been a boost.

“This team’s real loose, and that starts with Ozzie,” said Konerko, referring to manager Ozzie Guillen.

And the city that has been baseball-hungry for decades is caught up in Sox mania, with skyscrapers near Lake Michigan lit up with team lettering.

A sign-waving crowd estimated at 1,000 jammed a street next to a terminal Saturday near Midway Airport to welcome the White Sox from Boston.

The White Sox will work out today and Monday and wait to hear who they’ll play in the next round beginning Tuesday at U.S. Cellular Field.