My favorite part of Richard Thompson’s live performance of his “1,000 Years of Popular Music” had to be hearing a full house at the Old Town School of Folk Music sing along with him on the chorus of Britney Spears’ “Oops! I Did It Again.”

I must confess: I’m not that innocent. Thanks for giving me the extra ticket, Rob!

First, congratulations to the Marlins. They were clearly the best team this October, and the Cubs ought to take some measure of consolation in the fact that they came much closer to beating them than anyone else did during the postseason. Josh Beckett’s complete-game shutout of the Yankees on only three days’ rest will go down as one of the all-time great World Series performances. He was amazing.

While it feels a little better to know the Cubs got beaten by the best, and that the Yankees have now gone a whole three years since a World Series title, there are still some people who insist that Cubs fans should be thankful their team failed again to win the big prize.

You see, the fans have so strongly identified with the Cubs as “lovable losers” that there’s no way they could recover from the tragedy of a championship — or, worse yet, a series of championships. This is the basis for an obnoxious Oct. 19 Chicago Tribune story by Rex W. Huppke.

The headline? “Back from the brink”:

Glenn Stout, a baseball historian and author, said a championship season could have forever changed the relationship of the team and its devoted followers.

“I think the identity would change, and I think expectations for the team would change,” said Stout, who has long chronicled baseball’s other premier losers, the Boston Red Sox.

“Since the Cubs haven’t been really even close for so long, that’s kind of allowed that lovable loser mentality to maintain. People think, `Who cares what happens? It’s nice to be at Wrigley Field.’ But once they win, I actually think that there would suddenly be expectations for them and losing would suddenly be not so acceptable.”

Do we expect the Cubs to win? No, we don’t. But that does not mean we don’t passionately thirst for a winning team. Losing, like death, is never “acceptable.” Both are inevitable, but if a person handles death well she’s praised for her calm in the face of mortality. Cubs fans, on the other hand, are patronized as suckers for their steadfastness in the face of losing.

Losing may have been the usual for a long time, but it’s not comfortable and it’s not lovable. There’s a rather large group of thumb-suckers out there who think Cubs fans can’t handle success, and are therefore somehow undeserving it. That’s just B.S.

It’s said that being a Cubs fan prepares you for life. Well, I feel comfortable speaking for most Cubs fans when I say that I have been more than adequately prepared for life. Now I am prepared to win.

It was a damn shame the Cubs-Red Sox World Series didn’t come off, and at least one person is paying the price for it: Grady Little won’t be back next year in Boston.

Dave Veres, Dusty? Dave F. Veres?!

Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine that a manager is really serious about winning when he makes such boneheaded moves. Runners on second and third in the seventh inning, still only down two runs, and Baker goes to about his fifth-best reliever. Remlinger was available. Borowski was available. Hell, even Zambrano and Clement should have been available.

This is even assuming we give Baker the benefit of the doubt that it was the right thing to bring Wood back out in the sixth after having already given up six runs. Most intelligent Cubs fans won’t give him that much. It’s certainly hard to fathom how he left Prior out to dry in the eighth inning of game six after Ivan Rodriguez whacked a curve ball that had more hang time than Michael Jordan at his peak.

Game seven of tonight’s Red Sox-Yankees game echoed the Cubs-Marlins game six eerily. The BoSox were up by three runs with their best pitcher in the mound, five outs away from going to the Series. And the Yankees started sending screaming liners all over the place. Grady Little even comes out to the mound after the Williams RBI single.

He’s got a great lefty in the bullpen in Embree, with three lefties in a row coming up. But Little stays with Martinez even though the Yanks were obviously figuring him out. He proceeds to give up the lead before Embree and Timlin come in and keep the game tied. Little absolutely blew this game for the Red Sox, no question about it.

I don’t think you could go so far with Baker. The Marlins did what they weren’t supposed to do — they beat Prior and Wood. Prior gave up five runs (only three earned) and Wood gave up seven. The Cubs didn’t get as far as they did with those kind of performances, or by winning those games. In that sense, while Baker made some important strategic errors, he was more obviously done in by his team’s failure to execute the way they had all season long. Alex Gonzalez’s error was emblematic of that failure. That said, Baker’s abuse of Wood, Prior and Zambrano throughout the course of the regular season (and especially of Prior in the game two laugher) may have been a factor in how they performed in the NLCS.

Anyhow, the magic number for a Cubs-Red Sox World Series was down to two. And it stays there. Who the hell am I supposed to root for now? It’ll have to be the Marlins. If they could come back from 3-1 to take the pennant from the Cubs, they better damn well beat the Evil Empire.

While I’m really disappointed, there is much cause for hope, at least for the Cubs. They have an extremely promising nucleus of young talent (Wood, Prior, Zambrano, Patterson, Ramirez and Choi) along with some older players who will be in the mix for a while yet (Sosa, Alou, Clement), a healthy farm system and a lot of dough to spend in the offseason (thanks to greater ticket revenues and the contract expirations of Alfonseca, Veres, Estes, Grudzielanek and Karros).

With Hendry as GM and Baker to lure in the talented players, the Cubs should put a much better ballclub on the field next year. It’s too early to say how good of a ballclub, and it would be silly to expect that next year’s team will achieve more than this year’s did. The 2003 Cubs were aided greatly by subpar years from the Cardinals and Astros, and they got hot at just the right time. Prior and Wood led the way by going on the equivalent of a 30-game hit streak at the same time down the stretch and in the playoffs.

Next year’s Cubs may even fare worse, if certain things don’t go their way. New free agent hires may not perform up to expectations. Prior, Wood and Zambrano may not pitch as well, or worse yet get hurt. If Grudzielanek re-signs with the Cubs, he very well could revert to his traditional form, as compared to his way above average year in 2003. As always with the game of baseball, it’s a crapshoot. Which is why, in spite of my optimism, it still hurts to see this chance at the pennant slip away.

In spite of all that, I’ve got high hopes for 2004. I do not believe it will be like 1985, 1990 or 1999, when the Cubs followed up postseason appearances with below .500 seasons. The Cubs may not make the playoffs, but they should be in the hunt for a long while.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast, especially in the hearts of Cubs fans. But next spring, that hope will be driven as much by the head as by the heart.

So just wait. Yeah, just wait.

Until next year.

Don’t think that everyone in Chicago is inconsolable tonight. There are a few select groups of people for whom this stunning loss comes as a pleasant delight: the Florida Marlins, White Sox fans and sportswriters.

And there’s another group of Fox Sports executives in some Manhattan skyscraper living it up tonight, elated that they’ll get to see a game seven.

To actually discuss what happened seems foolish, but all we have left are words.

After the game, Dusty Baker repeated the conversation he had with Moises Alou after the eighth inning and what may become known in Cubs’ lore as The Catch That Almost Was But Then Wasn’t Because of a Guy in the Stands and Then All Hell Broke Loose, though I’m sure the sportswriters will come up with something catchier. They always do.

I quote from memory, “Mo told me he timed his jump perfectly and the ball was about to enter his glove, and all of a sudden it was gone.”

“Just like the game,” Karen said.

Yeah. Just like the game.

The Marlins didn’t trot out in the eighth in their 1984 Padres uniforms, but the Cubs might as well have dusted off their Mitchell & Ness throwbacks for this one.

It all happened so fast. Gonzalez’s error was costly, sure. And maybe Baker should have had Farnsworth up and warming just in case. But who thought it could go so wrong so quickly? And when Farnsworth and Remlinger came in, they both gave up hits. Perhaps it wouldn’t have made a difference. Perhaps not.

About that fan. It’s hard to tell whether he actually interfered with the ball in play. Let’s assume for the moment that he didn’t. Judging from the looks of the man, he’s a Cubs fan through and through.

He’s got the Cubs hat on and the headphones on, listening to it all unfold on the radio. He’s got a good seat in the front row down the left field line. He must know somebody. He must have given up a chunk of change. He must be a season-ticketholder. He must care. He’s there for this game.

And here are his Cubbies — our Cubbies — five outs away. Prior’s got a man on but it’s not too much of a concern. He’s already stranded six Marlins on base and he’s the stud. The man wins games. A fly ball comes his way and, boy, wouldn’t you like to catch a foul ball from the game when the Cubs won their first pennant in 58 years?

So you react the way you were taught to react when a fly ball’s coming at you — the way your brother or your father or your neighbor or your Little League coach taught you. And you try to catch it. That’s all.

And suddenly, the game is gone.

I wanted this one badly. For so many reasons. Tomorrow will be a much tougher matchup for the Cubs. Redman is the kind of crafty lefthanded pitcher who gives them nightmares, and he pitched very effectively in game three. Wood is Wood — he’s been great lately, but you never know how quickly he’ll adjust if his stuff isn’t awesome. He’s not unbeatable.

I guess Prior isn’t either.

It’s only by coming so close to the pennant tonight that I now realize how much I want the Cubs to win it — now. I think these Cubs will perennial contenders in the NL Central for years. But it’s one thing to be a contender, and quite another to be at the precipice. Who knows when it will happen again?

“Just wait,” they say. Until next year?!

No, no, no. …

All right, I’ll wait.

Until tomorrow.

ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark says the Marlins need a miracle to take the pennant.

I had a terrible dream the other night. I was at a Cubs-Marlins game in Wrigley Field, sitting in the bleachers behind Bill Murray.

The Cubs had built a huge lead, maybe seven or eight runs. Then when the Marlins came back out on the field in the fourth or fifth inning they were suddenly all wearing the ugly brown road uniforms of the 1984 San Diego Padres.

Naturally, the Cubs blew their huge lead and I woke up terrified. I hope that by posting about this now I am not jinxing anything but, rather, exorcising the demons of past Cubs failures to clear the way for the euphoria of a pennant victory. I don’t believe in jinxes, anyway.

Especially after that nightmare.

In spite of the fact that the Cubs’ very own Superman, Mark Prior, will pitch Tuesday in the team’s second attempt to put away the Marlins and win the National League pennant for the first time since 1945, I’m once again a bundle of nerves.

If the Cubs had lost game four 8-3 and won game five 4-0 I’d probably feel wonderful, what with the Cubs taking two of three in Miami and coming back to Wrigley needing only one win between Prior and Wood. But they didn’t.

They won that fourth game to go up 3-1 and I keep thinking, in spite of myself, the 1984 Cubs were one win away and lost three in a row. It could happen. It has happened. And these Marlins are precisely the kind of team to do it.

It’s silly, I know. My heart is overruling my head right now. I should be thinking that Cubs have put themselves in the perfect position to win. But I can’t.

The Marlins have Carl Pavano going against Prior, and this makes me even more nervous. The Cubs haven’t faced Pavano yet in this series (except in relief), making him a wild card. He hasn’t allowed a run in relief the entire postseason. And he was a solid pitcher during the regular season, at 12-13 with a 4.30 ERA.

He doesn’t by any means have Josh Beckett-like lights-out stuff, but he could be good enough to contend with an overworked Mark Prior, who I fear will be vulnerable.

And if — shudder — the Cubs were to lose game six then all bets are off. You’re right back to a one-game season do-or-die with Wood back on the mound. He also was less than spectacular his last time out, and he’d be matching up with the crafty lefthander, Mark Redman, the kind of pitcher who gives Cubs’ hitters fits.

Karen says I’m not allowed to be nervous until and unless it goes to game seven. Well, I can’t help it. I’m nervous now. I view game six as a must-win. And I think the Cubs will too. They are lucky to be unburdened by the history we as Cubs fans carry around with us all the time.

You see, we are fans of an unchanging entity called “the Cubs.” To us, these Cubs are seemingly no different than “the Cubs” who lost in ’84, and who haven’t won the pennant in 58 years. But these Cubs are different. These Cubs don’t fear history; they embrace it. The franchise’s checkered past makes their winning all the sweeter.

Cubs fans don’t want the supposed drama of a seventh game. They want deliverance. And I think this team is ready, in spite of their fans’ trepidation, to deliver a pennant celebration in Wrigleyville on Tuesday night.

Go Cubs!

The Cubs not only won the pivotal third game to go up 2-1 and guarantee a return trip to Wrigley, but they won it in extra innings against a team that seemed to have patented dramatic playoff victories so far this October.

I’m too tired, and my nerves are too frayed, to go into all the second-guessing I did throughout the game. Let’s just say Dusty Baker’s lucky the Cubs pulled this one out. Hopefully they’ll do the same tomorrow and Sunday and get this thing over with.

I’m already sick of the Marlins. The magic number for a Cubs-Red Sox World Series is now five.

It was nice to finally breathe during a Cubs playoff game, although I did experience some shortness of breath caused by the increasing rage I felt for Dusty Baker as he sent Mark Prior out inning after inning in spite of the huge lead.

Why not take him out in the sixth and let Juan Cruz get some work in too? Is Alfonseca so wonderful that he couldn’t use some opportunities to figure out these Marlins hitters? They’d have a day’s rest tomorrow if needed Friday, which is unlikely because Wood’s pitching. Oh, well. Enough moaning.

It’s true the Cubs won’t win many 9-8 ballgames, but they won’t lose many in which they score 13, either. Mark Redman and Dontrelle Willis may present the Cubs with more problems than Beckett or Penny did in these first two games, but needless to say if the Cubbies keep hitting like this they will not lose this series.

My analysis, though, is that the Cubs hit a lot of mistake pitches. The Sosa, Ramirez and Gonzalez homers today were hit off major mistakes, for example, and the Marlins really haven’t had anyone pitch well for them yet. So it’s hard to get too confident about this offensive output, because I think Redman is perfectly capable of throwing strikes and getting good location and the Cubs will be back to their usual scrapping for three to five runs.

Still, it is great to see Gonzalez get hot, with three home runs in the last three games. It’s nice to know that the bottom third of the order is not a complete black hole.

I still believe Friday is a must win. The Miami crowd will be very difficult to handle, and even a single Marlins baserunner will send it into a frenzy. Getting that first game will be key because then I think the Cubs could approach games four and five with the notion that stealing just one of those will send them back to Wrigley with Prior and Wood back-to-back to get the fourth win and advance.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox stole one from the Yankees, who could not figure out the Tim Wakefield knuckler. Now the BoSox have their two best starters, Derek Lowe and Pedro Martinez, going in games two and three with a very good chance to go up 3-0 or at least 2-1.

The magic number for a Cubs-Red Sox World Series is now six.

Go Cubs! Go Red Sox!

Well, the Cubs aren’t going to win many 9-8 ballgames, NLCS or not. It didn’t feel like a terrible loss because of the way the Cubs came back repeatedly, but now they have to win four of the next six games to advance to the World Series.

It helps that four of those starts will be made by Prior and Wood, but it also puts a lot of pressure on them. The worst part of this loss was that a win would have redeemed another bad outing by Zambrano. It would have meant the Cubs could much better afford to lose one of the Prior-Wood starts and still take the pennant home.

Now they must win all four of the Prior-Wood starts or at least one of the two starts by a still gimpy Clement and suddenly unreliable Zambrano. Zambrano is a great young pitcher, and he will win many for a lot of years with the Chicago Cubs, but right now he’s a giant question mark. I defy any Cubs fan to feel confident about a win in game five, Zambrano’s next scheduled start.

I don’t think his arm is tired or his back is a problem. I just think he’s forgotten how to pitch his game. And in crucial moments, such as last night’s third inning, he doesn’t seem to think at all.

There are several of Dusty Baker’s moves that will be second-guessed. The first would be the decision to leave Zambrano in the game in the sixth inning, when he allowed his sixth run. But the same folks complaining about the move to bring in Guthrie in the 11th also complain about leaving in Zambrano, when the reason Baker stuck with Big Z was to stay away from the bullpen, which is very shaky outside the Remlinger-Farnsworth-Borowski nexus.

As for the Guthrie move, specifically, here’s what Phil Rogers had to say:

Baker’s most costly error was putting lefty Mark Guthrie in to start the 11th inning. Pinch-hitter Mike Lowell’s leadoff homer turned Sammy Sosa’s game-tying homer in the ninth into a footnote, giving Florida a 9-8 victory.

Oddly, Baker seemed more worried about having Lenny Harris come off the bench to face Antonio Alfonseca, Dave Veres or Juan Cruz than getting the matchup between Lowell and Guthrie, who when last seen was serving up a two-run homer to Chipper Jones.

“I anticipated they would bring in Lowell,” Baker said. “At that point, I was down to three pitchers. Lenny Harris hits Veres good, hits Alf good. I took my shot with Lowell. … Guthrie hung a pitch and [Lowell] didn’t miss it.”

I agree that Lowell is much more dangerous off the bench than Lenny Harris, who made a specialty of not hitting a fly during his half-season stay in Chicago, though I doubt if Veres or Alfonseca would have kept Lowell on the bench. Guthrie gave up a home run to Chipper Jones in game four and has been generally crappy recently, and one thing to be said in favor of Alfonseca in that situation is that he’s a sinkerballer and less susceptible to the home run.

Of course, when Alfonseca came in he promptly loaded the bases and was lucky to get out of the inning on a hard-hit line drive double play. So it wasn’t as though Baker had a lot of options. Which brings me to what I think was Baker’s biggest mistake in last night’s game.

He rightfully doesn’t really trust anybody in the pen except Remlinger, Farnsworth and Borowski. Yet with a tie game in the seventh inning, Baker took out Remlinger with one out and one on. Farnsworth came in and struck out two men to end the inning and then pitched a perfect eighth. But why take out Remlinger in that situation in a tie game when you know your short in the pen? All year, Baker has made the mistake of thinking Remlinger is only good against lefties, when in fact he’s stronger against righthanders. He should have left Remlinger in there to finish the seventh and perhaps start the eighth.

Farnsworth could have gone two innings and Borowski could have gone another two. Farnsworth and Remlinger were both well rested and with Mark Prior going tomorrow and then an off day Baker had to have in the back of his mind the notion that these guys might not see action again until Thursday. Why not ride your horses in this situation? Why put the game in the hands of guys you don’t really trust?

Picking between Veres, Cruz, Alfonseca and Guthrie in the 11th inning is like choosing whether to jump off a cliff or be pushed off. It’s not much of a choice at all. Baker’s move in the seventh necessitated that choice.

But it’s over now. Hopefully Prior can again be the stopper he’s been all year long and get the Cubs a win they absolutely must have. A Wood win in game three is also an absolute must. Then the Cubs would be up 2-1 and know that no matter what happens they’ll come back to Wrigley, and can just hope that Clement or Zambrano will pitch well enough to clinch the series in Miami.

After all, game one was great. I was offered a ticket to the game but couldn’t go because I had to drive down to Springfield on business. It was a tense drive, but nice, because nobody was around to complain about my yelling like a maniac in the first, third and sixth innings. I was in my hotel room by the time Sammy hit his two-run shot to tie it, and I hope nobody was in the next room trying to get some sleep, because I was bouncing off the walls.

I wish I was at that game. Beautiful night. Exciting game. My dad got to go instead, and though he usually prefers 2-1 pitching duels, I have a feeling he won’t have any complaints about that one. It doesn’t matter when and where or how I see these games. I could be sitting in the first row behind home plate and I still couldn’t be any closer to real action, which is the unusual palpitations in my heart generated by an odd little thing called hope.

Still there, and stronger than ever.