BOSTON - David Ortiz was on deck when the last out was made. Curt Schilling waited to pitch in a game that never would be played.

The Boston Red Sox's playoff season ended so quickly that the pitcher who starred in the postseason last year and the slugger who led the majors in RBIs this year didn't get one last chance to rescue them.

The team that ended the wait of generations of passionate fans in 2004 by winning its first World Series championship since 1918 held it for just one year.

The Chicago White Sox beat the Red Sox 5-3 Friday, finishing off a three-game sweep in the AL division series.

"I play to win. I'm not a good loser," Ortiz said when he appeared in the clubhouse 90 minutes after the game. "And I know how good it feels to win."

Had the Red Sox won Friday, Schilling was scheduled to pitch Saturday against Jon Garland with a chance to send the series back to Chicago for a fifth game Sunday.

Instead, last year's ace who struggled after postseason ankle surgery, never got to pitch in the playoffs.

"Ironic, I guess, is the word," said Schilling, who might have pitched earlier in the series if he hadn't played last Sunday when Boston needed him to clinch the wild card. "A lot of it is my fault. If I pitched better it wouldn't have gone down to the last day of the regular season. But this was Wake's game to pitch."

Tim Wakefield worked a decent but insufficient 5

innings, and Boston failed to score with the bases loaded and none out in the sixth against Orlando Hernandez. Tony Graffanino - who replaced 2004 postseason star Mark Bellhorn at second base - hit an infield popup for the second out with the score 4-3.

More than an hour after the game, in an almost empty clubhouse, he looked into his locker and said out loud, "I can't believe I'm going home today."

The White Sox, however, with the help of Paul Konerko's tiebreaking homer, continue toward their chance to make history.

It was Chicago's first victory in a playoff series since Shoeless Joe Jackson's team won it all way back in 1917. Two years later, Jackson's "Black Sox" took payoffs from gamblers to throw the Series; eight men were out - banned from baseball for life - and every White Sox player since has lived with a longer but lesser-known "curse" than the supposed one the Red Sox busted when they ended their 86-year drought last season.

"Finally, we make another big step," manager Ozzie Guillen said. "They have waited a long time for this moment. And this team is making it happen this year."

Just as Boston's victory in the World Series last year was as much for the former players as the current ones - for Ted Williams and Johnny Pesky and generations of fans - Chicago's sweep in the first round of the AL playoffs brought cheer to those like Thomas and Harold Baines and Minnie Minoso who have waited all their lives to see the team win even one postseason series.

"This is something that I've not seen before. I'm glad that my team did it, and I know that we're going to go all the way," the 82-year-old Minoso said. "We want to do things like the Boston Red Sox did."

Boston had hoped for its first repeat titles since 1915-16.

"I know all of us enjoyed it," outfielder Johnny Damon said of last year's run. "There were tons of books and DVDs that made it seem it was easy to accomplish. It wasn't."

The White Sox lost in the '19 and '59 Series and the '83, '93 and 2000 playoffs. With the three-game sweep, they are the first team to advance to the second round of the playoffs, where they will play the winner of the Angels-Yankees series.

Chone Figgins charged through Yankee Stadium's center-field swamp to thwart New York with his glove, then he put the Los Angeles Angels ahead with a suddenly revived bat.On a soggy night when The Big Unit was a big bust for New York, Figgins' clutch plays pushed Los Angeles within one win of the AL championship series.The speedy Figgins saved at least one run and possibly two with his diving grab of Gary Sheffield's liner, then hit a go-ahead single in an 11-7 victory Friday that gave the Angels a 2-1 lead in their best-of-five playoff series."Figgy's been our catalyst the entire season," Darin Erstad said.Garret Anderson had four hits and five RBI for the Angels, who roughed up Randy Johnson and set their postseason record with 19 hits. Los Angeles can close out the series Saturday, eliminate the Yankees for the second time in four seasons and earn a spot against the Chicago White Sox in the ALCS.Los Angeles lefty Jarrod Washburn is scheduled to face Shawn Chacon in Game 4.