HOUSTON (AP) – For five long hours, Geoff Blum waited restlessly on the bench.

There really wasn’t much he could do to help his White Sox teammates except cheer them on, inning after inning.

Game 3 of the World Series kept dragging on, deep into Tuesday night, and Blum was just about the last guy you’d expect to have a hand in the outcome.

Then, a double switch in the 13th inning, and a chance to play.

He was in there – at second base – and he made it count.

In his first World Series at-bat, Blum homered off Ezequiel Astacio in the 14th and sent Chicago to a 7-5 victory over the Houston Astros in a memorable marathon that lasted 5 hours, 41 minutes.

“You sit around for 14 innings and something like that happens,” Blum said. “I didn’t know if I got it high enough. Somebody was watching out for me.”

The White Sox moved within one win of a sweep and their first championship since 1917. And they can thank Blum, a reserve infielder acquired from San Diego at the trade deadline in a deal that probably didn’t make a single headline anywhere in the country.

He’s certainly no afterthought now.

As soon as Houston’s Adam Everett popped up against Game 2 starter Mark Buehrle for the final out, Blum began hopping up and down at second base.

Suddenly, he was a World Series star.

Back in May, when Blum was on the Padres’ disabled list, his wife, Kory, gave birth to triplets.

Turns out, more joy was on the way in October.

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