Cubs get it done for fans
CINCINNATI -- They could have called it the Colonoscopy Classic.
It was, after all, the division nobody wanted.
Until Friday night, at least, when the Cubs clinched the National League's Central Division at 10:04 p.m., while standing in front of their lockers and watching TV at Great American Ball Park.
It set off a mild, and occasionally wild celebration, a fitting tribute to a moonwalk into the postseason's first round for a team that hasn't won the big prize in just short of a century.
They managed, just barely, to capture the top spot in the basement of baseball divisions, but in today's game that means a legit shot at winning it all, and starting this morning the Cubs have as good a shot as anyone else.
"This is a great way for us to go out," said Tribune Co. boss Dennis FitzSimons of the team's impending sale. "Really, and I mean this from my heart: the fans are the ones who deserve this, and that's what makes you feel good."
It was FitzSimons who wrote the checks, and it was rookie team president John McDonough who got the cash so GM Jim Hendry could engineer this last-to-first march, beginning with the hiring of manager Lou Piniella.
"I've never been around anyone who had as much knowledge of the game as Lou," said veteran Ted Lilly, one of the team's top free-agent acquisitions and the club's most consistent starter. "I can't tell you how much I've learned about baseball this year just by watching him."
McDonough, who lapped up champagne Friday night like he'd walked for weeks in the desert, echoed that thought, but his first mention was of the team's eternally-parched fans.
"When I said we would win immediately, I meant that the fans deserve it immediately," McDonough said as he wiped bubbly from his eyes. "But this is just the beginning. This was not our goal."
No, Hendry spent like a drunken Steinbrenner with visions of winning a World Series, and though it seemed to some like a waste in April and May, it was clear enough on paper that only the Cubs would be left standing atop the Central standings.
"We just had to stay healthy," Lilly said. "I thought even when things were bad, when guys were fighting or getting traded, when it was the worst, I still thought we were the best team.
"We just went at it a bit backward."
Well, you don't get labeled a backward organization for nothing, so perhaps it was appropriate for these Cubs and their 84-76 record to back right into the playoffs when the Brewers fell to San Diego in Milwaukee.
But at least the Cubs didn't back over it. Nope, hard as they tried, they didn't.
"We did it the hard way, but we did it," said Carlos Zambrano (18-13), who pitched 7 brilliant innings against a brutal Reds lineup. "I believe anything's possible for this team now. I know our fans believe that, too."
The thousands who made the five-hour trip gave the Cubs a homefield advantage, complete with roars for the scoreboard operator when the Padres -- and old friend Greg Maddux -- took a 4-3 lead over Milwaukee at 8:51 p.m. Chicago time.
They were louder two minutes later when the Cubs finished their 6-0 pounding of the Reds but had to wait another 71 minutes for the genuine celebration, with fans taking to the streets and taverns -- singing, "Go Cubs Go," along the way -- while Cubs players and staff studied TVs in the clubhouse.
When it ended, the champagne rained and the optimism reigned.
"It was quite a journey," Piniella said, shaking his head. "But we have a lot of work left to do."
Oddly, when Piniella was the manager here in 1990, the Reds sat in their clubhouse during a rain delay and watched on TV as the Dodgers lost and Cincinnati clinched the Western Division title from the discomfort of their locker room chairs.
"It wasn't what you wanted," Piniella recalled. "You'd like to do it yourself, but then again, you take it however it happens and you go from there."
From there, the Reds went on to win the NLCS and sweep a heavily favored Oakland club in the World Series.
It goes without saying that Piniella would happily go the same route again, and Friday night provided Piniella plenty of baseball symmetry and franchise memories.
"Wow, if we could do that, it would make this tonight seem like a tea party," Piniella chuckled. "I think a World Series title for these fans, I think that would be a party like no other."
Of all the truths Piniella has spoken this season, no words were louder, or more certain, than those.
brozner@dailyherald.com
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