Cubs head for road clincher after big going-away party

The final home game of the season at Wrigley Field is generally reserved for dread and loathing, if not the occasional bloodletting and execution.

But this season's 81st contest on the North Side didn't mark the last walk of the Green Mile, instead setting off another party at the Tavern on the Green.

A victory party.

And Sunday's bash, an 8-0 win over the Triple-A Pirates, was merely the last one here until Oct. 6, when the Cubs are destined to return for Game 3 of the NLDS.

"I felt all along that we'd get hot in September and we did, but let me tell you something: We still have some work to do,'' manager Lou Piniella said of the Cubs, who are 15-8 since Aug. 31. "We're in a good position, but there's baseball to be played.''

Don't tell anyone who attended Sunday's coronation that they weren't celebrating a division title, certainly not after what occurred simultaneously in Chicago and Atlanta, when the Central Division race, for all intents and purposes, ended.

It was precisely 3:06 p.m. Sunday when Derrek Lee homered to make it 6-0 Cubs in the sixth, just as the Brewers were putting the finishing touches on a seventh-inning gag job in Atlanta.

The Cubs' rally took so long that the Cubs' scoreboard operator had to wait to post the Braves' 4-spot that gave them a 5-4 lead over the Brewers.

Good thing, too, because a hush had fallen over the crowd when enigmatic ace Carlos Zambrano pointed to his right forearm and departed with cramps prior to starting the top of the seventh.

With Cubs fans thinking the worst, with their team taking a decisive lead in the race and with the playoffs only a week away, as reliever Kerry Wood warmed on the hill, the scoreboard minister seized on the opportunity.

Nearly every fan -- waiting, watching and wondering what the Braves had been up to all that time -- was studying the board when the No. 4 went up for Atlanta. It was as if lightning struck Wrigley Field, the ballpark exploded, and out poured the loudest roar of the day, maybe the year.

The faithful did the tomahawk chop and chanted as if the Braves were playing right there in front of them.

"I watch the scoreboard all the time for all the division races in both leagues. I've got nothing else to do between innings,'' Piniella laughed. "But what the fans did, that's unique.

"This is a great baseball environment, and I can see why so many players want to play here. I don't think there's anything like it anywhere else in baseball.''

That scene was repeated when Atlanta put up another deuce in the bottom of the eighth, and again when the final score was posted to seal Milwaukee's 2007 fate.

The carnival at Clark and Addison was in full swing.

All that was left was for the Cubs to do was dismantle the Pirates, and when it was complete, Cubs fans took to singing and took to the streets in true 1984-style.

"When the game's over and the home team wins,'' Piniella said, "this place is special.''

The home team won again Sunday and, with Milwaukee's loss in Atlanta, the Cubs expanded their lead to 3½ games over the Brewers and are quite comfortably in the driver's seat in the NL Central.

They head off to Florida and Cincinnati for their final six games beginning Tuesday, with the Brewers needing to win all seven of their remaining games against St. Louis and San Diego to tie and force a playoff if the Cubs capture only three of their last six.

"I think for (the Brewers) it's a little bit harder now," said Zambrano (17-13), who allowed 3 hits in 6 innings and then promised, again, to drink more water to avoid cramping. "We just have to take care of us now."

The first day of fall almost always brings tears to a Cubs fan's eyes, and a frigid wind to the heart, a cruel winter dead ahead in the windshield.

But this autumn offers only warmth and cheers as it would take a choke absurd even by the Cubs' legendary standards to hand over the Comedy Central to Milwaukee.

Clearly, that feeling was palpable to the 41,364 in the park, who brought the record season attendance to a final total of 3,252,462.

When that announcement was made, the Cubs went out of their way to make certain the club on the South Side knew the North Siders sold more tickets this year than any Chicago team has ever sold in any venue.

Puffy-chested are these Cubs, sitting on a big lead, having forgotten the misery of April and May.

"We don't have to think about those bad months. They're gone. Whatever happened, happened,'' Zambrano said. "Now we just have to think about this week and being in the playoffs.

"We have to live for now, live for the future.''

And, as Zambrano said, the postseason.

It begins next week.

brozner@dailyherald.com