HOUSTON — Well, (insert feigned bored sigh) they're already here. The White Sox might as well get this thing over with.

Go ahead, Sox fans. Raise the roof. This World Series is done.

Is that playing with fire? Is that tempting the gods? Is that foolhardiness in action? Possibly, maybe, perhaps.

Nah.

Geoff Blum, a former Astro, hit a home run in the 14th inning to help give the Sox a 7-5 victory over Houston and a three-games-to-none lead in the Series. The next time they say "die" will be their first.

The Sox are on the verge of winning their first World Series since 1917. Try to get your mind around that idea. And if you want to bring in that other team from Chicago, you can also point out that it will be the CITY'S first World Series title since 1917.

Are we getting ahead of ourselves?

Nah.

No team in World Series history has come back from a 3-0 deficit. And the Astros, a distracted bunch that spends too much time worrying about whether its roof is opened or closed, aren't going to do it.

If you're using history as your guide, it's more likely the Sox will wrap this thing up in Game 4 tonight. Of the 21 times a team has taken a 3-0 lead in the World Series, 18 have swept.

The Sox won with grit and desire and the absence of their best friend, good luck. In the 14th inning, Blum took an Ezequiel Astacio pitch into the right-field seats in a game that refused to end. Astacio got into all sorts of trouble, finally walking in a run to make it 7-5.

This game was a lot like the Sox and their history of getting to the World Series: It took a while.

Five hours, 41 minutes, to be exact.

The Sox' Damaso Marte, who has been in and out of manager Ozzie Guillen's doghouse, pitched well in relief, but after Juan Uribe made an error in the bottom of the 14th, Guillen brought in starter Mark Buehrle, who pitched Game 2 Sunday. He got Adam Everett to pop out to short to end the game.

Winning pitcher: Marte.

Save: Buehrle.

Just how the Sox drew it up.

It would probably take an executive order from the president for the Astros to win this thing, and the fact that Barbara Bush, the mother of the chief executive, was sitting in the first row behind home plate makes it at least a possibility.

The Sox made the invincible Roy Oswalt look very, very vincible. So all the talk about the Sox being lucky in these playoffs, while true, took a backseat in Game 3. The Sox seemed intent on showing they can play a little bit too when they're not rubbing a rabbit's foot.

If a UFO had crashed in centerfield Tuesday afternoon, the Astros wouldn't have been any more distracted than they already were. They spent parts of Monday and Tuesday griping about Major League Baseball's decision to keep the retractable roof at Minute Maid Park open for Game 3.

The diagnosis was roof-in-mouth disease. They spent way too much time talking about the controversy.

"This is our home field," outfielder Adam Everett said. "If we want to close it, we should be able to close it."

The reason the Astros wanted the roof closed had nothing to do with weather, which is the whole purpose of the roof. It was 61 degrees and clear at game time Tuesday.

No, the Astros wanted it closed because the ballpark is much louder that way and thus a competitive disadvantage for their opponents.

They were also were rightly upset about an incident in which a fan allegedly pulled the hair of Biggio's wife during Game 2 at U.S. Cellular Field.

And they probably were still angry about the umpire's ruling that Dye had been hit by a pitch in Game 2. And now MLB's call on the roof didn't go their way. A dream retracted.

"It's a gorgeous day," commissioner Bud Selig said.

Not a bad night either

By Rick Morrissey is a sports columnist for the Chicago Tribune.