Entirely new feel these days at Wrigley

Maybe it's just my imagination, but Cubs fans might finally have grown up.

I know, I know, that's like saying Charlie Brown has matured, but that's how it has felt around Wrigley Field lately.

Early in the season, Reds radio announcer Marty Brennaman was correct when he said Cubs fans are obnoxious.

Not anymore, I don't think.

Barack Obama was correct when he generalized last month that Wrigley isn't a place serious about baseball.

Now it is, I think.

During a summer like this - when the Cubs are as successful as they have been - Wrigleyville usually is a party already happening rather than a parade waiting to happen.

The crowd's mind-set seemed to be, "We might as well get goofy now because history eventually is going to goof on us."

Every victory was treated like a miracle. Every day in first place was precious. Every period of respectability was a blessing woo, a blessing woo.

But the 2008 season has had a different feel.

Heck, I can't even remember a drunken fan running onto the field wearing nothing but Harry Caray glasses lately.

Oh, there has been the postgame singing like college fans do and the waving of the "W" flags like at political rallies, but those have become rituals representing the beginning of something rather than the end of everything.

The sense is that for a change this is more contend than pretend and the big payoff will be in October rather than June as in swoon, July as in lie or August as in bust.

This year one month evolved into the next and now, in mid-September, the Cubs' magic number to clinch a division title is down to 4 and the wait for the postseason is almost over.

Before Tuesday night's 5-4 victory over Milwaukee, Cubs manager Lou Piniella was asked whether he knew how to calculate a magic number. Mark DeRosa was asked whether it was good to clinch a playoff spot early and get some rest.

Yes, folks, the inevitable payoffs clearly are almost here: A National League Central clincher is imminent, then a playoff opener and overall a legitimate chance to advance to a World Series for the first time since 1945.

Maybe the attitude is different this season because for the first time in a century the Cubs will reach the postseason a second straight year.

When a team is in the playoffs one season and improved the next, the tendency is to consider the regular season a prelude.

New York and Boston think that way and maybe now Wrigleyville does, too.

The feeling, as I feel it, is that this particular group of Cubs has progressed from Point A to Point B and now only Point C matters.

Piniella said, "We're trying to win a championship here."

Nobody had the audacity to ask whether he specifically meant a division championship, a league championship or a world championship.

Likely all the above, and Piniella already is morphing September and October into one big ball of opportunity.

"We've got a long way to go," said Cubs winning pitcher Ryan Dempster.

Meanwhile, Cubs fans seem to suddenly understand that the postseason - not the regular season - is the time to get crazy.

Hey, everybody has to grow up sometime.

mimrem@dailyherald.com