Cubtober.

For crying out loud, I told you fuckers to wake me when September ends, and now it has! When the hell did this happen?

As you know, MFG made his supposed-to-be-annual pilgrimage to New York City last week, and his usual rumination on how long or when or why in his life he should have lived there. Everyone probably has their New York moment during each visit – wandering a crowded yet strangely empty street, through a drizzle, swiftly dodging cabs, buses and tourists. As you pound the pavement, you absolutely revel in the fact that no one within an island’s radius gives a shit about you. Fantastic way to live. (Better than motorists idly waving as they pass you at 15 mph on a crowded residential street, anyway.)

I ramble a bit today, firmly perched with all of Chicago nation on the precipice of the Cubs’ playoff Odyssey, no matter how short, long, brief, arduous, intense, or pleasant it turns out to be. For all our posturing, worrying, or swaggering in the months previous, a home opener tonight against the Dodgers is a nice place to be.

Can that be right? As a Cubs fan, am I actually relaxed, entering this year’s playoffs?

Yes. I’m content.

What? Really?

Sure. Take a step back.

The Cubs had a great season, featuring a no-hitter, heartstopping comeback wins (vs. the Rox, Marlins, and Brew, respectively) interspersed with 94 other signature wins (Hank White vs. Cardinals, Daryle Ward’s Florida blast, Lee and Ramirez back-to-back beating the ChiSox, Soriano’s walk-off winner vs. the Dodgers, ReJo’s fantastic week against the Marlins and Pirates, Fonty’s homer vs. the Giants, Ted Lilly bowling over Molina, etc.) a Cy Young candidate (Carlos Marmol), a rookie of the year and actual productive catcher (Ge-o So-to), and a run differential, OBP, and defense we fans have pined about for years. To boot, the Cubs faced two moments of extreme adversity – immediately after the All-Star Break and during a disgusting losing streak in early September – but bounced back to roll teams and snag series each time.

Now the dust has settled, and the Cubs are 97-64, embroiled in perhaps the most competitive and contentious first-round playoff series of them all. They face a dramatically different Dodgers team than the one they owned during the first half. Plus Dick Stockton/TBS will do the games (eep). And, of course, that whole hundred-year thing – causing gleeful Chicago media to forecast peril with each and every pitch, and prompting psychotic ledge-jumping fans to assume baseball, the Cubs, and karma owe them some sort of break – a final retribution to fill their hollow lives.

This swirl, of course, will kill you if you let it.

Don’t.

The baseball playoffs are a completely different animal than the regular season. For six months, fans vacillate up and down with each Cubs win and loss, conscious our team is never as good as its wins, nor as bad as its losses. The season is a grind, and through talent, skill and depth, the Cubs – like any good team – proved supreme. It’s OK to be proud, satisfied and thrilled with a great regular season – and it’s even more OK to hope it predicates sustainable, lasting success. The Cubs finally figured out the value of platoons, replacement players, and on-base percentage, and all of this is, well, great. It’s about time.

The playoffs, however, can simply be the icing on the cake. The ups-and-downs, highs-and-lows of a regular season may always even out – but the intense spirals of playoff baseball turn on luck more than any of us care to admit. (That’s luck, not panic or curses, idiot suicidal Cub fans.). The Cubs may lose in the first round. They may stroll through the postseason and win it all.

But of course, neither may happen, and it wouldn’t be the first time. Ask the Atlanta Braves how far the NL’s best record gets you in each of 13 seasons. Or the Oakland A’s and Minnesota Twins in the early part of the decade.

The best regular-season squads of the last decade seem to coast into each playoffs on a wave of expectations, only to suffer dismissive defeat. The playoff paradox requires extreme skill, patience, savvy and expertise to build a regular-season champ, yet dumb luck determines the World Series winner. (Ask Billy Beane.) Only one team out of eight can win it all – the rest are victims of a monthlong scrum, bizarre circumstance and luck reigning supreme.

Luck changes, trends switch, and heroes are born and created. The 2008 Cubs were a breath of fresh air for a legion of fans who ominously sense doom – we know they’re good, we’re thrilled they are accountable, and we’ll deal with the rest. Pressure is going to occur, and each time it has, this team always handled it. Who’s to say the playoffs will prove any different?

”We’re responsible for ’08,” Piniella said. ”We’ll play as hard as we can as well as we can for as long as we can, and when it’s over, we’ll go home like men. That’s it.”

Well put, sir. And it holds true for us fans as well. Beginning tonight, I’ll root as hard for the Cubs as ever, never for a second presupposing that 2008 is the year simply because of all sorts of poppycock about curses, goats, angst or tradition. I’ll root for the Cubs because I’m fan, because I want them to win every game every year, and I’ll root for the Cubs as long as they play.

And when it’s over?

Well, let’s just take this one day at a time. Go Cubs.