Leading Off

Sox and the City

With a motorcade through the South Side of Chicago and a ticker-tape parade down LaSalle Street last Friday, first baseman Paul Konerko (far left), manager Ozzie Guillen (far right) and the rest of the White Sox celebrated the team's first world championship in 88 years with an estimated 1.8 million fans along the parade route (page 40).

Whiplash

Thrashers defenseman Jaroslav Modry put some extra curve in his stick when he ripped a slap shot in warmups before last week's NHL game against the Islanders in Uniondale, N.Y. Modry didn't score in the game, but Atlanta won 4-3.

Jerry Cooke 1921-2005

Shortly after emigrating to the U.S. in 1939, the Ukrainian-born Cooke received a small Rolleiflex from his aunt and began taking pictures. He didn't stop until last Thursday, when he died at his East Hampton, N.Y., home. Cooke (left, at Royal Ascot in the 1960s), whose work appeared in LIFE, FORTUNE and Paris Match, and is on permanent display at museums in Europe and the U.S., produced 47 covers for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. He also shot 16 Olympics and 42 Kentucky Derbys, and before each Derby his words to SI's director of photography never varied. "Don't worry," Cooke would say, "I've got the finish line."

? For more Leading Off pictures, go to SI.com/photos.