Now the real fun begins for the cursed Cubs

Since 1908, the last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, they’ve played in seven of them.

And rolled craps.

Hall of Fame old-time Cubbies Hack Wilson, Gabby Hartnett, Kiki Cuyler, Rogers Hornsby, High Pockets Kelly, Billy Herman and Chuck Klein have played on good Chicago teams, only to come up short.

More recently, Hall of Famers Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Bruce Sutter, Greg Maddux and Dennis Eckersley have felt the burn of the Cubs’ curse.

The Cubs haven’t played in a World Series since 1945, let alone win one. In that year, they lost to the Detroit Tigers in seven games. Detroit scored five runs in the first inning of Game 7 against Cubs starter Hank Borowy and reliever Paul Derringer.

Now, 71 years later, the Cubs are the best team in baseball. But are they going to be the best team in the postseason?

I don’t have to spell out the curse. Baseball fans are fully aware of the futility associated with the Chicago Cubs since before almost everyone currently living on the planet was born.

The Cubs’ losing ways isn’t a curse, it’s a way of life. In a world full of shocking surprises and things that don’t make sense, it’s comforting for many — especially St. Louis Cardinals fans like myself — to wake up every morning to one constant.

The Cubs.

On paper, Chicago, which begins its postseason Friday against either San Francisco or the New York Mets in the NL divisional series, should breeze through the playoffs. But you know the value of paper.

The Cubs won 103 games during the regular season. They have an incredible lineup, a scary pitching staff and Aroldis Chapman standing tall, really tall, at the end of games to snuff out hope.

Nobody is going to beat the Cubs.

Yet there are forces at work here, forces that cannot be seen and forces that seem hellbent on keeping the Cubs out of the winner’s circle.

I take you back 55 years to 1961, when Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and Billy Williams first became Cubs teammates. They were exceptional players and spent 10 seasons together building Hall of Fame careers.

Banks, Mr. Cub, started his big-league career as a shortstop but moved to first base. Santo was an offensive-minded third baseman and Williams, who had one of the sweetest swings you’ve ever seen, played left field.

And in the first five seasons those all-time great Cubs — heck, all-time great players — were together, the team was 96 games below .500 and finished seventh, ninth, seventh, eighth, eighth and 10th in the National League.

In 1966, young right-hander Ferguson Jenkins joined the mix. He, too, would be a Hall of Famer. But while the Cubs were better with Jenkins, who won 83 games from 1967-70, they never reached the postseason.

Now, though, the Cubs have vaunted curse-breaker Theo Epstein, the team’s president of baseball operations, calling the shots. It was Epstein who lifted the dark clouds over Boston when, as general manager, he guided the Red Sox to its first World Series championship in 86 years in 2004.

Epstein will qualify for sainthood if he can bust another curse, this one dug in even more deeply than the one he broke in Boston.

After winning the World Series in 1908, the Cubs played in seven more over the next 38 seasons. Then it’s as if the baseball gods gave up and decided baseball’s October showcase was better off without them.

If we’re being honest, though, and if we can somehow not give this so-called curse the time of day, the Cubs are the prohibitive favorites.

No other team can match Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Jake Arrieta and John Lackey for starting pitching. Chicago has two MVP candidates, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, in the heart of their lineup and a bunch of other good players around them. The Cubs can hit, run, play defense, pitch — am I leaving anything out?

The Cubs used their recent futility on the field to pick high, and successfully, in the draft. They were able to pluck Javier Baez, Albert Almora, Bryant and Kyle Schwarber in the first round and Epstein expertly traded for Rizzo and signed Lester, Lackey, Ben Zobrist and Dexter Fowler as free agents.

And when the Cubs needed a bullpen hammer, he traded some of the Cubs’ finest prospects for Chapman, who has 16 saves and a 1.01 ERA since arriving.

Not only are the Cubs really good now, they’ll be really good into the future. The farm system still has crops and some of their best players are young and entering their primes.

Still, all of the excitement generated by the present and future Cubs comes with a warning. A curse. An inexplicable 108-year span between championships that cannot be fully explained by bad management or bad luck.

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 2:21 PM with the headline "Now the real fun begins for the cursed Cubs."