AC006198

Well, the Cubs have won the N.L. Central and now face the Arizona Diamondbacks for the N.L.D.S. in a best of five shoot-out.

But first, can every Chicago Cub fan please take a moment to breathe and then laugh your collective asses off at the total, catastrophic collapse of the New York Mets? I mean, we haven't seen a collapse of a playoff bound team like that since maybe, what.....1969?!!! Thanks Mets for replacing the painful memories of us giving it up to you in '69, for blowing a 7-game lead with 17 games to go in 2007.

So Game 1 starts on Wednesday in Arizona with ace Carlos Zambrano taking the mound. I think Carlos learned some valuable lessons this year (well I HOPE he has) in keeping his cool in the big games and how much the fans can get behind you when you just do your job. He needs to come out of the gate firing heat on Wednesday, so I hope the pressure doesn't get to him. Looking back at the 2003 Cubs, there's only 3 of them left on this year's team in Aramis Ramirez, Kerry Wood and Carlos Zambrano. I'm sure the pain is still there for those three guys and they can share it with those who have joined the team.

Looking at our squad, we've might just have the most previous World Series winners on our team and so the experience has to be just natural. No one believes the Cubs can do this, which makes them the PERFECT team TO do it. In 2003, we scratched our heads at the Marlins and I still wonder how the hell they pulled it off, but I think the Cubs are at the point that everyone thought they'd be back in April and May, dominant!!

Probably a lot of posts this week and next and hopefully the next as my emotional rollercoaster will be fun to handle.

For those who don't understand the title of this post, it refers to a sign over the Right Field wall and it's debated a lot except by true Cub fans. It WAS 036198 until this week, so the 00 is now the number of years since the Cubs won a Division Championship. Cub fans know what 61 and 98 mean.