Cubs fans have reason to believe

It was a regular season littered with successes for the Chicago Cubs, from Canadian pitcher Ryan Dempster's team-high 17 wins to career seasons by second baseman Mark DeRosa and shortstop Ryan Theriot to Carlos Zambrano's no-hitter.

Still, long-suffering fans on the city's north side are hungry for more after their team captured back-to-back National League Central Division titles for the first time since 1908.

Put simply, they want a World Series championship, something that has eluded the Cubs for a century.

"Everybody talks about the 100 years, but we can't control that," Dempster told CBCSports.ca.

"I think if people just let the 2008 Cubs stand on their own two feet and just worry about that, I think it's been a pretty enjoyable ride, whether it ends three games into the playoffs or at the end of October as a champion."

The Cubs clinched their division with a 5-4 win over St. Louis on Sept. 20, the earliest Chicago had secured a playoff berth since 1932.

Dempster, who grew up thousands of kilometres from Wrigley Field in Gibsons, B.C., doesn't believe in jinxes or curses.

He doesn't care to revisit the Cubs' last appearance in the World Series in 1945, when legend has it that local bar owner William Sianis put a hex on the team because his goat was barred from Game 4.

Or in 1969, when some people placed some of the blame for a blown lead against the New York Mets on a black cat that ran across the field at Shea Stadium.

"You never know what's going to happen in the playoffs. You like to believe you can win it, and we do," said Dempster, the first Cubs pitcher to have a sub-3.00 earned-run average (2.96) with at least 200 innings pitched since Zambrano in 2004.

"We believe we've got a good enough team. But I think just the effort that we put on the field should be good enough for anybody, and hopefully when all is said and done there's a really big reason to celebrate."

GM not dwelling on drought

Cubs general manager Jim Hendry isn't dwelling on the World Series drought.

But the 2003 NL Championship Series remains fresh in his mind. His team unravelled in the eighth inning of Game 6 against the Florida Marlins, who rallied to a victory remembered most for a fan's interference (Steve Bartman) on a foul ball to left at Wrigley Field.

Florida won Game 7 and then beat the New York Yankees in six games for its second World Series title in franchise history.

"I still have some bad thoughts when I wake up in the middle of the night about the [NL championship] series in '03," Hendry told reporters this past February. "You try to move forward."

Hendry did as much last winter after Arizona swept the Cubs in three games in a first-round playoff series.

With a solid nucleus, including power hitters Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano, the GM signed highly touted free agent Kosuke Fukudome as an on-base specialist and to improve Chicago's outfield defence.

Hendry later replaced unproven outfielder Felix Pie with veteran playoff performer Jim Edmonds, signed Toronto Blue Jays castoff Reed Johnson as an energy-type outfielder and traded for front-line starting pitcher Rich Harden of Victoria, who went 5-1 with a 1.66 ERA in 12 starts as a Cub.

These additions coupled with the play of blue-collar types DeRosa (career-high 21 home runs and 87 runs batted in) and Theriot (.307 average compared with .266 last season) gave Chicago the ability to overcome serious injuries to Soriano and pitcher Jon Lieber.

'It takes a lot to win a championship'

"We've hit little bumps in the road and missed guys because of injury, but we never let it distract us from what we're trying to do. We have a lot of depth," said Dempster, who joined Cubs closer Kerry Wood this season as the only two pitchers in club history to have a 30-start season and 30-save season.

"It takes a lot to win a championship. It takes talent, it takes being healthy. But most of all, it takes execution, and I think we have the guys here that have the ability to execute that kind of stuff."

Some would say this year's squad is similar to the Cubs teams of the late 1950s and '60s built around outfielder Billy Williams and shortstop/first baseman Ernie Banks.

"You have Derrek Lee and your other sluggers. The Cubs have [built around them] with Reed Johnson and [DeRosa and Theriot]," said CBC Sports baseball analyst Jesse Barfield, a native of Joliet, Ill., near Chicago. "They're not your star names, but without those guys they don't have a chance to win the division."

Barfield never attended a game at Wrigley Field as a youngster but "watched a lot of WGN" television, listening to Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Brickhouse's numerous calls of Banks's home runs and Williams's "sweet swing."

"They didn't win a lot of games," Barfield told CBCSports.ca. "They competed, played hard and played the game right. It reminds me a lot of what I see now, except they're winning."

The former Toronto Blue Jays outfielder said Cubs manager Lou Piniella, who took over following a disastrous 66-96 campaign in 2006, deserves much of the credit for the team's turnaround.

Upon his hiring, the fiery skipper said the Cubs were "going to work hard and get this thing moving in the right direction" and he has been true to his word.

"Sure, they've had some ups and downs, but Lou's kept that team together and has things under control," said Barfield, who served on Piniella's staff in Seattle as the Mariners' hitting coach in 1998 and '99. "The players respect him and love him at the same time."

With an NL-best 97 wins in their pocket, including 55 at home, the Cubs appear poised to end the championship drought, which Dempster predicted would happen back in February on the first day of spring training.

"When they take batting practice they do it with a purpose," Barfield said. "Everything is done with a purpose. Remember, this is a team that's basically pieced together with a lot of guys other people have given up on.

"They have something to prove."