E-Mail This Article to a Friend It’s just as crazy in Chicago BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

It’s fairly obvious that pennant fevah has gripped the Hub, but over in America’s Second City — Chicago — it’s no less nuts. All non–White Sox fans are totally enveloped in the fortunes of the North Side lads. If you think that Red Sox fans are caught up in a frothing playoff frenzy, you should see Cubs fans, who firmly take as gospel the team’s unofficial motto: NEXT YEAR IS HERE.

Red Sox Nation has certainly become accustomed to the phrase "Wait till next year," but Cubs fans have been chanting that mantra for even longer. That’s why this year is so special to them. Sox fans can whine and moan about their team’s shortcomings, but at least their squad has periodically reached the post-season, and has even played for the glittering trophy four times since you-know-when. Cubs fans, on the other hand, have not been so fortunate. Their team has not reached the World Series since 1945, and hasn’t won it since 1908, when the Cubs beat the Tigers in five games to capture the franchise’s second-straight championship. The biggest difference between the Sox and Cubs — apart from New Englanders’ all-consuming passion for their team, while Chicagoans simply enjoy the simplicity of a beer-soaked day at the ball yard with theirs — is that when Boston qualified for the playoffs last month, it had one long-term goal in mind. And with all due respect to the A’s, the Sox have always believed that they have bigger fish to fry than winning the first round of the playoffs. Cubs fans have lower expectations each season, so just reaching the playoffs and — God forbid — actually winning a post-season series is cause for dancing in the streets of Chicago, where the Cubbies hadn’t won a divisional or league championship series since, well, ever, before dispatching the Braves last week in the NLDS. When a team unexpectedly does well, it produces the greatest satisfaction for its fandom. Last year’s team lost 95 games, and finished an astonishing 30 games behind the division-winning Cardinals, who just happen to be the Cubs’ most-hated rivals. Therefore it was sweet music to the ears of Cubs fans when the turning point of this year’s magical season came at the Redbirds’ expense, as Chicago took four of five in an early-September showdown at Wrigley. The Cubs entered the final weekend of the regular season tied for the NL Central lead with the Houston Astros, and both teams faced lousy teams at home. Amazingly, though, the Astros lost the first two games to the 68-94 Brew Crew, while the Cubs swept a Saturday double-header over the 75-87 Bucs. Quicker than you can say, "Let’s play two!" it was over: the Cubs had won the Central.

Cubs fans were even more startled when their team went to Atlanta and won two out of three at Turner Field over the perennial playoff chokers, with bookend gems by Kerry Wood clinching the best-of-five NLDS. Couple that with wild-card Florida’s stunning four-game dismissal of the defending NL champion San Francisco Giants, and the stage was set for a Cubs-Marlins fight for the pennant — with the Cubs in the proverbial catbird seat.

So what’s it like in Chicago these days? You’d think it’s pretty much the same as in these parts, and it is. However, one needs to examine the season-long history of the two teams to discern the difference in how Cubs fans are feeling heading into the weekend in South Florida, and how Sox fans are dealing with their team’s three-game home stand against the Pinstripers.

On paper, it is simple: Sox fans had a good feeling about their club from the outset of the season. Despite the pitching questions, it was obvious that this team — with a nearly $100 million roster and some the game’s marquee players — would be in the hunt for the duration of the 2003 campaign. Sure, bullpen woes and off-the-field issues threatened the on-field harmony, but Boston never fell further back than seven games in the division all season long, and its overpowering offense kept it in every single game and prevented any long losing streaks. The Sox never managed to overtake the Yanks, but the team did sweep a critical four-game series against the reeling Mariners in August to move ahead to stay in the wild-card race. By the season’s final week, it was all over but the shouting.

The Cubs, though, on the heels of their disappointing 2002 performance, had no such lofty goals for this season. The team was in a bit of turmoil and underwent an off-season management change. But they blossomed under former Giants skipper Dusty Baker (it’s not often a team gets to hire the manager of the previous season’s World Series participant). The Cubs also got terrific pitching out of Wood, the 26-year-old fireballer (14-11, 3.20, 266 Ks), and second-year righty Mark Prior, who went from a so-so 2002 campaign (6-6, 3.32, 147 Ks) to a sparkling 2003 season (18-6, 2.43, 245 Ks). The team has always been little more than Sammy Sosa on offense, but this season the Cubs got solid contributions from chronic underachiever Moises Alou (.286), Mark Grudzielanek (gesundheit! — .314), Eric Karros (.286), Sosa (.279, 40 HRs), and even from mid-season pick-ups Randall Simon (the sausage-smacker from the Steel City batted .282 for the Cubs) and Kenny Lofton (who rejoined Baker and hit at a .327 clip the final two months).

To know how the city of Chicago and its environs are dealing with the prospect of "the Cubs" and "World Series" being mentioned in the same sentence, I went straight to the source: my favorite baseball gal Kirsten, who lives in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago and is a Cubs upper-deck season-ticket holder. Her observations:

• TV ratings for Cubs games in the playoffs have hovered in the 50-share vicinity, which means that half of all TVs in Chicago tune in to the team’s games. There’s even a Cubs song that’s dominated the airwaves lately. Supposedly it’s always played on flagship radio station WGN before the games, and last week it was played inside the stadium before the playoff games. Everyone knows the words and sings along.

Go, Cubs, go-o-oo. Go, Cubs, go-o-oo. Hey Chicago, whaddya say? Cubs are going to win today!

• Unseasonably warm temps have created a summer-like atmosphere in the city. With windows open all over town, everyone can hear radio and TV broadcasts of the game filtering into their own apartment windows, and the cheers that erupt when the team does well can be heard throughout the city’s streets. Adding to those sounds of summer are the numerous news helicopters that hover over Wrigley Field, reminding residents that sleep will have to wait while the home team is in action.

• Like the Red Sox, the Cubs are a close-knit bunch. The pitchers and catchers are particularly chummy, and the team believes that "in Dusty they trusty." Shortstop Alex Gonzalez is one of the most vocal of the players in the dugout, and Karros has been filming snippets of the Cubs’ run with his digital video camera since early September. While the first baseman insists that the footage is only for personal use, it seems clear that if a Cubs championship ever comes about, his collection of video memorabilia from the pennant race will end up on a retrospective DVD.

• Sox fans remember when Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez represented "automatic" victories for the home team, and Cubs fans have embraced their two aces, Wood and Prior, in similar fashion. Indeed, Prior went 5-1 with a 2.27 ERA and 60 strikeouts since the start of September, and Wood has been no slouch either, going 3-1 with a mind-boggling 1.00 ERA and 47 Ks down the stretch. Red Sox fans who daydream of a match-up with the Cubs in the next round may want to rethink facing a rotation anchored by Prior (who’s lost only once since July 11) and Wood, each of whom is 2-0 in post-season play and is seemingly unhittable. And while some baseball analysts have scolded Baker for occasionally leaving his starters in too long, Kirsten insists that all the Cubs’ starters are accustomed to delivering up to 130 pitches per game, and for the last two months their bodies have become totally conditioned to such long outings.

• In Boston, people can think of nothing but a Cubs–Red Sox World Series, but in Chicago, the fans would just as soon meet up with the Yankees in the Fall Classic. With no disrespect toward the Sox, Chicagoans wouldn’t mind playing New York because of the past history and inherent rivalry between the two cities, the Empire Staters’ undisputable tradition of winning, and the excitement generated by the two teams’ inter-league series played at Wrigley back in June (in which the Cubs took two of three, including a memorable Sunday-nighter when Prior out-dueled Andy Pettitte).

• Like Bostonians with their team, the residents of Chicago are totally on the Cubbies bandwagon, with the team being front-page news in every paper (at least now that the garbage men’s strike has been settled), schoolkids making up hand-drawn signs and hanging them from their windows and doors, and everybody — everybody (except for White Sox and Cardinals fans) — talking about the Cubs. In their minds, there is no talk of next year. After all, next year would seem to be here, and the good Lord above wouldn’t take the team this far just to break their hearts in the final reel, now, would He?

Well, Sox fans could have some stories to tell about the Almighty’s post-season sense of humor, but you talk to a Chicago fan, and it’s all but ordained: the Fish will be squished this weekend in Miami, and it’ll be on to the World Series, where destiny awaits.

Of course, that’s what they’re saying about their own teams in South Florida, New England, and, of course, Lord Vader’s hometown.

Boston fans will certainly root for the Cubs if their own team doesn’t make it to the World Series. But while Sox fans are enjoying their team’s run with a rational sense of self-preservation until the thing’s been won, Chicago fans have already put their hearts and souls into their beloved team’s supernatural path to glory. In their world, there can be no other outcome than a positive one.

And who are Sox fans to tell Cubs fans to be, you know, prepared for the worst?

Let them enjoy the ride while it lasts, but as Sox fans well know, nothing can ever be taken for granted when it comes to the Boston Red Sox or the Chicago Cubs.

Nothing.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com