Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Cubs in first place

It wasn't the prettiest game tonite at the Friendly Confines. But all that matters is the final outcome. At the end of the night the Cubs 5-4 win over the Phils combined with the Mets 8-5 win in Milwaukee moved the Cubs into a first place tie in the NL Central. Remarkably your Chicago National League Ballclub has made up eight and a half games on the Brewers. With two months to play here are the standings:

Central W L PCT GB
CUBS 57 49 .538 -
Milwaukee 58 50 .537 -
St. Louis 50 54 .481 6.0
Houston 46 61 .430 11.5
Cincinnati 45 63 .417 13.0
Pittsburgh 43 62 .410 13.5

In the postgame press conference Lou Piniella was low key, as I would expect. The media tried to get him to say something about catching the Brewers. Lou reminded us all that the goal is to be in first place at the end of the season and there are two months to play. A great perspective. But as a long time fan of this team, Uncle Lou will have to excuse me and other Cub fans if we are a little giddy. You see the Cubs don't find first place in August or September very often. As a matter of fact I looked it up. I'm 35 years old and only six times in my lifetime (1977, 1984, 1989, 2001, 2003, 2007) have the Cubs been in first place in August or September. I know there are bigger fish to fry, but this is exciting stuff. The moments in the next few months may end up being as treasured by Cub fans as the memories we have from 84, 89, 98 and 03.

Here's the victory song. Have a great night everybody.

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