Relief hero of the 2005 World Series champions and one of the South Side’s all-time star closers, passes away at 44
Bobby Jenks, former Chicago White Sox All-Star pitcher and 2005 World Series Champion, passed away yesterday in Sintra, Portugal, where he had been battling adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer. He was 44 years old.
Jenks had been receiving treatment near the home of his wife, Eleni Tzitzivacos, and with their two children, Zeno and Kate.
“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a team statement. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago. He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”
Jenks had been active in baseball as recently as last summer, as the seven-year veteran had started a managerial career. His debut, in 2022, found Jenks leading the Grand Junction Rockies to a 62-33 record and Pioneer League title. That season’s Manager of the Year next moved closer to his former South Side home, taking the Windy City Thunderbolts to a 40-56 record in 2024, before his cancer battle. Jenks had hoped to return both to manage Windy City in 2025 and participate in next week’s 2005 World Series Champion festivities at Sox Park.
Jenks pitched his first six major-league seasons with the White Sox (2005-10), going 14-18 with a 3.40 ERA, 173 saves (second in club relief history) and 334 strikeouts (seventh) over 329 relief appearances (sixth). He was an All-Star in 2006 and 2007.
Jenks, who became the first White Sox pitcher to routine reach 100 mph+ with his pitches, provided the finishing kick to Chicago’s World Series run in 2005, which ended an 88-year drought. He appeared in six games (five scoreless) in the postseason, earning saves in the series-clinching wins of Game 3 of the ALDS at Boston and Game 4 of the World Series at Houston. In the process, he became a sort of folk hero between his frank persona, fearsome velocity and the “big and tall” call to the pen from manager Ozzie Guillén.
Jenks recorded back-to-back 40-save seasons in 2006-07 at the age of 26, at the time becoming the second-youngest pitcher in major-league history to reach such a milestone. During that second season, in 2007, Jenks retired 41 consecutive batters — which tied a major-league record — over the course of 14 games from July 17-August 12. (Teammate Mark Buehrle broke Jenks’ record two years later, in 2009, in appearances that included his perfect game.)
“You play for the love of the game, the joy of it,” Jenks said during his last interview with SoxTV, last summer. “It’s what I love to do. I’m playing to be a world champion, and that’s what I wanted to do from the time I picked up a baseball.”
Or, as he told me and the other beat writers after what turned out to be his last games and last saves for the White Sox, capping off a doubleheader sweep with two saves over eight batters/2 ⅓ innings at Fenway Park on Sept. 4, 2010: “If you got it, go.”
While Jenks was battling cancer half a world away, his family home was destroyed in January during the Pacific Palisades wildfires. All of Jenks’ personal and playing career memorabilia was lost, save for his World Series ring.
Jenks remained as upbeat as possible during his time of duress, telling MLB’s Scott Merkin in February that “now it’s time to do what I got to do to get myself better and get myself more time, however you want to look at it. I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not going to die here in Portugal.”
While that determination ended up short of recovery, this spring the entire baseball world became aware of Jenks’ plight, offering both material and emotional support to see him through his fight. He responded to this writer’s concern with typical Jenks humility: “I have a lot of love around me, and every day I am getting more. That’s the best way to heal.”
Jenks is survived by his family in Portugal including Eleni, Zeno and Kate, as well as his four children from a prior marriage, Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson.