Cubs exciting, but let's not go crazy yet

A wise man -- if any Cubs manager can be called that -- once suggested not to get too giggly too early.

Easier warned than heeded, folks.

When the Cubs get off to a fast start, the season evolves into more than the "Summer of the Cubs." It becomes the "Year of the Souvenir."

Keep that ticket stub as a collectible … hang on to that game program … store those memories.

This just has to be the year the curse ends and the Lovable Losers as we know them disappear forever.

Well, Cubs manager Lou Piniella likes his team but cites that it's only May and recites that it isn't September.

You know, as if he suffered through all 99 years without a world championship. As if his Cub wounds have turned to scars. As if his tears have turned to pillow stains.

"I think we have a chance," Piniella conceded Sunday morning about the 2008 Cubs before adding, "There's a lotta baseball to be played. A lotta things can happen."

The Cubs always have had too much baseball left to play. So many of those diabolical things that can happen happened.

Piniella once uttered the term "Cubbie Occurrence," meaning everything negatively odd or oddly negative that inflicted this franchise.

Today the Cubs are in first place in the National League Central after capping an 8-2 homestand with Sunday's 4-3 victory over Pittsburgh.

"It was a wonderful homestand," Piniella said. "Now it's an important road trip for us."

Believe it or not, 118 games remain.

When the Cubs are on a roll -- especially in an electrified, energized, excited Wrigley Field -- it looks like this is the year fans have waited for. Or better yet, the fabled next year.

Then you remember you could be approaching your 100th birthday without having experienced the Cubs' year to win the World Series.

In April it was encouraging to hear the Cubs' 14-6 record represented their best 20-game start in 33 years. By the way, they finished 75-87 in 1975.

These Cubs scored more runs through 32 games than any Cubs team had since 1954. By the way, they finished 64-90 that year.

The tendency is for every milestone to become a millstone. This year, who knows?

Listen, the Cubs appear to have the Central Division's best team and perhaps the entire National League's best.

Piniella notes, "There has been a lot of ballyhoo about our chances."

The Cubs are so good they can't blow this thing any more than they could, say, the 1969 pennant, the 2-0 lead in 1984's best-of-five NLCS and the 3-1 lead in 2003's best-of-seven NLCS.

"Cubbie Occurrences" always occurred -- the black cat, the Gatorade glove, the post-Bartman meltdown.

No wonder the way Piniella put it when the Cubs went on a 2007 hot streak was, "Let's not get giggly." The way he put it last month was, "Let's not get crazy."

That could go for any team in May. It goes double, triple and quintuple for the Cubs. Until they get to their first World Series since 1945, much less win their first since 1908, it's best to emulate a certain wise, old manager.

"I prefer to be cautious," Piniella said.

In other words, wait to see whether the "Summer of the Cubs" becomes the "Year of the Souvenir."