Consecutive victories over Top 25 teams has Illinois ranked for the first time in six years.

Now the 18th-ranked Illini (5-1, 3-0) look to solidify a spot in the poll and become bowl eligible Saturday when they face Big Ten rival Iowa, a team they have not beaten in seven years.

Illinois upset then-No. 5 Wisconsin 31-26 at home last Saturday, one week after earning a 27-20 home victory over then-No. 21 Penn State. It is the first time since 1959 that Illinois has beaten two straight ranked opponents.

There’s been dramatic improvement in coach Ron Zook’s third season for a school that had eight total wins and went 2-30 in the conference the previous four seasons.

“With a team like us,” said running back Rashard Mendenhall, who rushed for 160 yards on 19 carries and two touchdowns against Wisconsin, “We haven’t had too much success like this. … (Now) we know we can play with anybody.”

Illinois is ranked for the first time since finishing the 2001 season 12th, and looks to win its sixth straight contest and improve to 4-0 in the Big Ten for the first time since 1990.

A win Saturday would also make Illinois eligible for its first bowl game since losing 47-34 to LSU in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2002.

To do that, the Illini must snap a four-game losing streak to Iowa, dating to a 31-0 home victory over the Hawkeyes on Oct. 14, 2000. The Illini’s most recent victory at Iowa City was 40-24 on Nov. 6, 1999.

Iowa (2-4, 0-3), though, will be looking to avoid a fourth straight loss and ninth in a row in the Big Ten. The Hawkeyes beat Purdue 47-17 on Oct. 7, 2006 for their most recent conference victory.

“It’s the middle of the season,” Illini cornerback Vontae Davis said. “We can’t fall now. We just have to keep pushing.”

Mendenhall has sparked an Illinois rushing attack that’s fifth in the nation at 261.2 yards per game. The junior is second in the conference with 128.7 yards a game on the ground.

Sophomore quarterback Juice Williams, who rushed for a season-high 92 yards on 14 carries last week, should play Saturday despite suffering a hyperextended knee against the Badgers. Backup quarterback Eddie McGee, who scored on a 5-yard run in the fourth quarter, could also see time.

“We take pride in our running,” Mendenhall said. “With our scheme and the playmakers we have out there, it’s hard for the defense to focus on just one person.”

Iowa could have the defense to stop an Illini team that averages 30.2 points a contest. The Hawkeyes are giving up just 16.6 points and 113.8 rushing yards per game.

Iowa, though, yielded 65 points in losses to Indiana and Penn State the last two weeks. The Hawkeyes were burned for a season-high 256 rushing yards in their 27-7 road defeat to the Nittany Lions on Saturday.

While Iowa’s defense will face a challenge, its offense must improve after gaining a season-low 194 yards against Penn State. The Hawkeyes had 48 rushing yards, the second time in three games they rushed for less than 60.

“We’re just going to have to keep working through things offensively,” said Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz, whose team averages a Big Ten-worst 17.3 points. “We have to find a way to muster more offense.”

Ferentz hopes for a big day from sophomore Jake Christensen, who was 16-for-29 for 146 yards and a touchdown last week. The suburban Chicago product has thrown five TDs in his last three games, but has also been sacked 18 times during that span.

The first order of business for the Chicago White Sox will be deciding whether to pick up the option years on shortstop Juan Uribe, outfielder/first baseman Darin Erstad and reliever Mike Myers, as well as figuring out what to do with outfielder Scott Podsednik, who is eligible for arbitration for one more year.

If the Sox pick up Uribe for $5 million, there goes the possibility of a David Eckstein signing. With Detroit likely to get involved in the sweepstakes for the St. Louis shortstop, the Sox might be outbid anyway.

No Eckstein would mean there’s likely no leadoff hitter coming from outside the organization, making Jerry Owens and Danny Richar the leading candidates.

The Cubs on the other hand need more pitching.  This years free agent crop is slim. 

Many of the Chicago Cubs have contracts that are unmovable, and Alfonso Soriano’s deal is on that list, but the one they might be able to unload is the four years and $62 million remaining on the contract of Aramis Ramirez.

The third baseman is overrated defensively, moves only when it seems to suit him, has taken to running out fewer and fewer groundballs and deep flies, and, as you witnessed last week, is a selfish situational hitter.

If you can move Ramirez and sign Alex Rodriguez, how much better would you be?

Favre threw two second-half interceptions to tie George Blanda’s career NFL record of 277, allowing the Chicago Bears to rally for a 27-20 victory at Lambeau Field Sunday night.

But Favre was responsible for only two of the Packers’ five turnovers against a banged-up but ball-hungry Bears team — a surefire recipe for an upstart team to cough up its undefeated record.

“We should have won the ballgame, but we made a lot of mistakes and they capitalized,” Favre said.

Bears at 2-3 and still in the Division Hunt! 

Meanwhile, Bears coach Lovie Smith could say a few words that hadn’t been uttered in Chicago in a while.

We liked our quarterback play,” Smith said.

Playing in his second game in relief of the benched Rex Grossman, Brian Griese did exactly what the Bears (2-3) wanted him to do — nothing flashy, but just enough to win.

“He did a great job managing the game,” Smith said. “Got us out of some tough plays, made good decisions.”

In other words, he was the anti-Rex.

“This was as much as a must-win as you can get for us,” said Griese, who was 15-of-25 for 214 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. “We needed the momentum. We needed the confidence. I thought our guys on both sides of the ball came out and played with heart and character and that’s what I’m most excited about.”

The Packers (4-1) gave away a 10-point halftime lead, and Griese threw the go-ahead touchdown to tight end Desmond Clark with 2:05 left.

Favre came out blazing with 243 yards in the first half and the Packers led 17-7 at halftime despite two first-quarter fumbles by rookie receiver James Jones in Bears territory.

Year 99 ended like all the ones before it, with a loss, only this one came so decisively that Chicago Cubs fans didn’t bother booing at the end. Losing in Wrigleyville is like breathing and walking and sleeping, more function than action, and as such a passive indifference helps them accept that next season will mark 100 since the Cubs’ last championship.

Granted, this one was uglier than most. First off, it came in the postseason, a National League division series sweep courtesy of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who have existed 122 fewer seasons than the Cubs and could match their number of World Series titles with another this year. And the season died with all the peace of a shiv to the jugular, what with Chris Young taking Rich Hill’s first pitch Saturday night deep into the left-field bleachers at Wrigley Field, starting the cascade toward the inevitable disappointment.

The final was 5-1, though the score was immaterial. Inconsistency plagued the Cubs all season, and it doomed them in October. They hit into four double plays and stranded nine runners. They yielded three home runs and wasted Arizona’s 13 strikeouts.

The Cubs were, for lack of a better adjective, the Cubs.

“When you don’t get the overall goal accomplished,” utilityman Mark DeRosa said, “it’s tough to look at it any other way than depressing.”

No dosage of Paxil could have saved the Cubs from themselves. DeRosa shouldered blame because he faltered in the most charged moment of the night, when Diamondbacks starter Livan Hernandez walked the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth inning.

DeRosa worked the count to 3-1. The 42,157 at Wrigley emptied their lungs. “Deafening,” DeRosa called it. Until he grounded to shortstop for the start of an Easy Bake double play.

“They’re the most deflating play in baseball,” DeRosa said. “It’s one of those things: Every time we got someone on and were about to hopefully get the offense going, we grounded into a double play and it took us right out of it.”

Ryan Theriot, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez – who went 0 for the series – were double-play victims, too, all rightful goats on the evening and in the series. The Cubs needed their bats, especially in light of manager Lou Piniella’s decision to play for Game 4 of the series by yanking his best starter, Carlos Zambrano, after 85 pitches in Game 1. Perhaps Piniella never saw the (if necessary) on the schedule.

“We had some opportunities that we squandered, and when you do that, you open the door,” outfielder Cliff Floyd said. “You open the door to keep their adrenaline going, you open the door for them to stay on top, you open the door for them to pump their fists and run off the field and do the things that they were doing.”

Floyd grew up in Chicago. He understands how the hex can vex. He can see some sicko killing a goat and hanging it from the right arm of the Harry Caray statue outside of Wrigley to exorcise some stupid curse. He realizes that when someone fouls a ball down the left-field line, as Hernandez did in the fifth inning, and then lands remotely close to Aisle 4, Row 8, Seat 113 – the Bartman seat – pockets of fans will gasp and whisper to one another how similar it looked.

To root for the Cubs means to accept all the idiosyncrasies that go with it – and also to remember that losing is a birthright, not a curse.

Even with the Cubs entering Saturday down 2-0 in the best-of-five series, the atmosphere outside Wrigley pulsed. Kegs drained, scalpers bartered, Chads hugged. It was a beautiful, genial, drunken mess until the first pitch to Young, a 91-mph fastball that bisected home plate.

“I should’ve known,” Hill said. “He’s been doing it all year, jumping on that first pitch, and he did it again.”

Nine of Young’s 34 career home runs have come on the first pitch, an absurd ratio.

“Yeah,” Hill said, “I wasn’t expecting it.”

He not only summed up the game’s first at-bat but his team’s entire series. Though the Diamondbacks finished the season with the NL’s best record, they entered this series as somewhat of an afterthought. The Cubs hog attention like that, because no matter how things end, they’re interesting. Win and it’s the biggest story of the year. Lose and it’s just another wasted season.

Actually, that might be a bit harsh. The Cubs did rebound from a 96-loss season in 2006 to win the division. They developed some young talent on the cheap and rounded out their pitching staff and stabilized the heart of their order for $300 million or so.

“This is just the start, fellas,” warned Piniella, and yet he wasn’t standing in his clubhouse, where only laments remained. The players sulked while the clubhouse attendants pounded away to remove the dirt from the Cubs’ spikes. They used extra Scrubbing Bubbles, because this marked the last cleaning the shoes would receive all season.

At 8:56 p.m., another clubbie walked up to the classroom-sized dry-erase board. In his right hand he wielded a towel, and he started to smear away the black writing. The time to stretch, to take batting practice, to throw out the first pitch.

Finally, it was empty, a blank canvas, everything wiped away, at least for now.

“Things just weren’t meant to be,” Floyd said.

Not this year.

And not the 98 before it, either.

The Cubs just could not get a big hit all series.  The young Diamondbacks swept the Cubs tonight with a Game 3 win.  Livan Hernandez pitched in and out of trouble all night and the Cubs his into 4 double plays.  More to come on the Sweep.  Cubs leave their fans hanging for another season.

Rich Hill loosened up his arm and legs during a light workout Friday, not far from where the ivy on the Wrigley Field walls is beginning to turn from green to brown.The Chicago Cubs‘ season will fade away, too, if they don’t find a way to escape an 0-2 deficit against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday.

Against the young, eager and talented Diamondbacks, the Cubs will count on Hill, hope their top hitters find their strokes and rely on a home crowd that is always raucous.

“We’re in a good position here coming home,” Hill said. “We get to play in front of a great crowd, some of the best fans in baseball. We’re down 0-2, but we have a great advantage going into this series in these next two games.

“Like I said, you’ve got to look at it from a positive standpoint — not, oh, we’re down 0-2.”

But another loss and the No. 99 pops up — 99 years since the Cubs’ last World Series title. And counting.

Manager Lou Piniella brought the 1995 Seattle Mariners back after losing the first two games to win three straight from the Yankees.

“It can be done,” Piniella said. “It would be nice to win three games in one day, but it’s not going to happen.”

Strong pitching from starters Brandon Webb and Doug Davis and Arizona’s bullpen has stifled Chicago’s offense, especially the big hitters in its lineup. Now the Diamondbacks will turn to veteran Livan Hernandez, who 10 years ago was the MVP of the Florida Marlins‘ World Series win over the Indians. He also started Game 7 of the 2002 World Series for the San Francisco Giants against the Angels.

So, bring it on. He’s been through loud and wild scenes during his career.

“The stadium is going to be packed and crazy and people screaming,” said Hernandez, who hasn’t pitched in a game since Sept. 26. “I think it’s great for baseball. I love it. It’s something I like, see the people screaming.”

In the two losses in Phoenix, the Cubs’ first four batters went 5-for-35 with 13 strikeouts. So while Piniella has taken heat for pulling Carlos Zambrano after six innings with the game tied at 1 in the opener and Ted Lilly was driven out early in Game 2, the Cubs’ bats also wilted in the desert.

Alfonso Soriano is 2-for-10, Derrek Lee 2-for-8 and Aramis Ramirez 0-for-9. The trio has no RBIs or homers. Piniella’s advice is to go with the pitch.

“It’s probably trying to overdo. … You don’t need to hit three home runs in one bat. They pitch away, hit the ball to right center,” Piniella said.

You don’t want to be relaxed because people are struggling because you never know when those guys will come back and start hitting the ball,” Hernandez said. “It’s something that I’ve got to do the same job that the other guys do. I know the frustration now for the Cubs is difficult.”

One player who knows the Cubs and who spent parts of the 2000-2003 seasons with them is Diamondbacks second baseman Augie Ojeda, who’s getting his chance after an injury to Orlando Hudson.

The fans at Wrigley Field use to chant “Aug-gee, Aug-gee” for the 5-foot-8 Ojeda. He probably won’t get that Saturday.

“The fans kind of took me under their wing. It’s a special feeling coming back,” Ojeda said. “They’ve been dying for a winner, so they’re going to go out there and give them the best support they have. We just have to go out there and keep playing our game.”

For Hill, keeping the ball in the park will be a big deal. Arizona has three homers so far, including a go-ahead shot from Mark Reynolds off reliever Carlos Marmol in Game 1 and Chris Young’s three-run homer that caused Lilly to slam his glove to the turf in disgust Thursday night.

“You don’t change your approach or the way you’re going to pitch,” Hill said. “All of a sudden, I’m not going to become Sandy Koufax, and Nolan Ryan’s not going to show up and start pitching the game for me. … It’s just a game, as simple as that sounds.”

But for the Cubs and their long-suffering fans it’s a big one. They spent $300 million in the offseason in a major restructuring, overcame a slow start and captured their first division title since 2003 on the final weekend.

“Look, the team finished last in the division last year, the most losses in the National League and here we are in the postseason in one year,” Piniella said. “If that’s not a success, well, I really don’t know what it is.”

Manager Lou Piniella got ahead of himself and, next thing he knew, the Chicago Cubs had fallen behind.Painfully. Hopelessly. Unnecessarily.

Had Piniella witnessed it unfold from the broadcasting booth, where he spent the 2006 season, he would have recited a mantra memorized by any manager – certainly any manager who has more than 3,000 games on his resume.

Play ‘em one game at a time.

Do not, under any circumstances, peer ahead to Game 4 during the seventh inning of Game 1 of a best-of-five playoff series.

Yet Piniella did just that on Wednesday night, pulling starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano after six innings and a scant 85 pitches with the score tied at one, not because Zambrano was losing steam, not because the Arizona Diamondbacks were dialing him in, but because Piniella wanted his burly right-hander to be fresh to pitch on three days’ rest in Game 4.

Take a hard look at the NLDS schedule, Lou. It reads: Game 4, if necessary. It might never be played. Zambrano’s next start might be Opening Day, 2008.

The first batter faced by Zambrano’s replacement smacked a home run. Piniella stood in the dugout stone-faced as rookie Mark Reynolds trotted around the bases and right-handed reliever Carlos Marmol slumped on the mound.

The Diamondbacks tacked on another run and closed out a 3-1 victory at Chase Field. Game 2 is Thursday night. And for the Cubs, it’s not if necessary, but is necessary.

“I was very surprised Zambrano came out because it was his game, he was great,” Diamondbacks second baseman Augie Ojeda said. “I don’t know what they were thinking, but it helped us out.”

So, Lou, what were you thinking?

“We’re thinking of putting him back in on Sunday on three days’ rest,” Piniella said. “He threw 85 pitches, our bullpen has done a good job all year. We turned it over to them.”

Could a manager who won a World Series title in 1990 and who turned around losers in Cincinnati, Seattle and Chicago be guilty of such a fundamental error, of looking ahead to a game that might never occur?

“I’m not accused of anything, sir,” he said to a reporter who raised the question. “I’ve got a good bullpen here, OK, and I trust my bullpen.

“It didn’t work today. Period. End of story.”

Not quite. Zambrano had thrown fewer than 85 pitches only once this year in the regular season, an 80-pitch outing July 18. He’d thrown 85 or fewer pitches only nine times in 180 starts since becoming a full-time starter in 2002.

No wonder he could hardly believe his ears when Piniella told him he was coming out of a game in which he had retired nine of the last 11 batters he faced and given up only a fourth-inning home run to Stephen Drew.

“He told me that was enough,” Zambrano said. “I said something like, ‘Can I pitch one more?’ and he said ‘No, that’s enough.’

“You know me, I can throw 120 pitches. I wanted to stay in the game. But he’s the manager, and whatever decision he makes is good. If Marmol gets them out one, two, three and we win, nobody talks about it.”

But Marmol – a dependable set-up man all season with a 0.72 ERA since Aug. 10 – instead grooved a fastball that Reynolds deposited into the left-field seats. Then Chris Snyder walked with one out, Ojeda doubled and pinch-hitter Conor Jackson hit a sacrifice fly to score Snyder.

That was enough to make a winner out of Brandon Webb, who set down the Cubs for seven innings and was shaky only in the sixth when he gave up a run and pitched out of a bases-loaded jam.

The Cubs were deflated, and their substantial Phoenix fan base was embarrassed, especially after a spectator wearing Cubs gear was kicked out for flashing a red light from behind home plate at Diamondbacks closer Jose Valverde in the ninth inning.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Here’s Piniella’s pep talk to Cubs Nation:

“Let’s not gloom and doom this thing,” he said. “This is only the first game of this series. Let’s just see how this thing turns out. Let’s not get down.”

That’s easier said than done for a franchise that hasn’t won a World Series in 99 years, hasn’t even been to a World Series in 62 years, and counts several curses among its folklore.

Down is where the Cubs have always been. It’s their natural state of being. And Piniella put them there again. Every patron in every North Side drinking establishment must have been struck by the same familiar dread.

Zambrano probably could have pitched several more innings. No one in the youthful Diamondbacks lineup had ever had a hit against him before Wednesday, having gone a combined 0-for-8. And besides Drew, who followed his home run with a sharp single in the sixth, no Diamondback hit the ball hard against him.

So in the home team’s dugout, the reaction to Zambrano’s departure was nearly audible, even amid the clamor of a sellout crowd of 48,804.

“Zambrano is a top of the line pitcher, and any time he comes out of the game it’s kind of a sigh of relief,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds, who began the season in Double-A, quickly became the Game 1 hero. And Piniella is the Game 1 goat, a word that causes shudders among Cubs fans, most of whom have memorized the tale of the curse of the Billy Goat.

In a nutshell: A fan named William Sianis brought his pet goat to Game 4 of the 1945 World Series at Wrigley Field – he had two tickets – but was escorted out of the stadium because of the goat’s foul odor. Sianis, who owned the famed Billy Goat Tavern, supposedly placed a curse on the team, and when the Cubs lost Game 7 to the Detroit Tigers, he sent a telegram to owner P.K. Wrigley that read, “Who smells now?”

Now?

Lou’s logic.

He wanted to win Sunday when it was Wednesday. Whether Sunday promises a ballgame will depend on the Cubs hitting better than they did, capitalizing on chances better than they did, and Piniella remembering rule No. 1 in every manager’s book of clichés and truisms.

Play ‘em one game at a time.

Talk, talk, and more talk. That’s all the Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks did Tuesday, a day before Game 1 of their National League division series. Yeah, the teams took batting practice and tossed the ball around Chase Field, but there was mostly chatter. Hey, banter, banter.Several themes recurred, including:

• The marquee pitching matchup between flame-throwing Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs and sinker specialist Brandon Webb of the Diamondbacks.

• How the Cubs’ clubs – power hitters Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez – juxtaposed with the timely production of the youthful, keep-it-simple Diamondbacks lineup.

• The contrast in managing styles: the shock therapy of Cubs curmudgeon Lou Piniella and the gentle hand of the Diamondbacks munificent Bob Melvin.

• The legions of Chicago transplants who live in the greater Phoenix area yet remain diehard Cubs fans. Could Chase Field become Wrigley under a roof?

Let’s listen in …

Webb vs. Zambrano

Zambrano on why he is a better pitcher than in 2003, when at 22 he gave up 25 hits and 10 runs in 16 2/3 postseason innings: “I got a taste then, but I’ve faced a lot of batters since 2003. Back then I didn’t have my cutter and didn’t have a fast slider and a slow slider. I’m older and hopefully wiser.”

Webb on hiding his emotions, a stark contrast to the emotional Zambrano (18-13, 3.95 ERA): “I mask it a little bit. I think it’s best not to show too much emotion when you are on the field. If I do get a big out I’ll give a fist pump. Other than that, I try to keep it bottled until the game is totally in our control.”

Cubs shortstop Ryan Theriot on facing Webb (18-10, 3.01): “You think you have a game plan on him, then you are 0-for-3. His sinker is deadly. There aren’t many guys who can throw one pitch and win a ballgame, and he’s one of them.”

Piniella on his team’s approach against Webb: “You’ve got to make him bring the ball up in the strike zone. That’s easier said than done. His sinker can get a lot of double plays, so we’ll try to hit-and-run more than usual, put the game in motion.”

Melvin on facing Zambrano, who hasn’t pitched against the Diamondbacks all season: “He has electric stuff. Just looking at it, you feel like it would be one of those low-scoring games. He’s their guy for a reason.”

Zambrano: “I don’t want to be pumped up. I want to be calm and let the moment come. When I get too excited, I try to do too much and problems come.”

Cubs’ clubs vs. Baby Snakes

Alfonso Soriano, who belted 14 home runs in September temporarily silencing whispers that he might never live up to the eight-year, $136 million contract he signed last off-season: “I finished strong and that’s the important thing to me. I’m feeling very comfortable. I’ve been hitting a lot of fastballs, but I can hit the breaking ball too.”

Webb, who has struck out Soriano four times not with his trademark sinker, but with his curveball: “You just try not to throw one into his happy zone. … And when you get down to Lee and Ramirez, you definitely have to execute pitches. If not, you are going to get hurt.”

Third baseman Mark Reynolds, who will be one of four first- or second-year players in Wednesday’s Diamondbacks lineup: “We’re so young we don’t know what we’re doing, so we don’t feel pressure. We just play ball, the same as we have our whole lives.”

Piniella: “We’re basically a power-hitting team. We hit a lot of home runs in September and played well. We are also an aggressive-swinging team. Arizona is a lot the same way.”

Melvin: “There was a lot of speculation that we would roll over as we got to the finish line, and that didn’t happen. We do have a lot of inexperience, but going through a pennant race has given guys a crash course. They don’t seem like rookies so much any more.”

Piniella vs. Melvin

Cubs infielder Mark DeRosa on Piniella, whose fiery reputation preceded him: “It took me until mid-July to understand what was expected by him. He has a mellower presence than what I anticipated. But he’s not going to sugarcoat things. All you can ask of a manager is that he has your back. And he has ours.”

Diamondbacks outfielder Eric Byrnes on Melvin, whose team was 29th in baseball with a .250 batting average, was outscored, 732-712, yet led the NL with 90 victories: “He’s kept everything positive and he knows that young players need their confidence boosted. And we’ve won a lot of close games, so he’s making the right moves during games.”

Chicago transplants vs. the Phoenix faithful

Theriot, on the prospect of thousands of Cubs fans flocking to Chase Field: “It’s like that everywhere we go. Our fans travel. And we do notice it.”

Diamondbacks first baseman Tony Clark – who lives in Phoenix year around – on the hometown fans: “People here know baseball. They get to see a lot of teams in spring training, and the climate means it’s always baseball weather. There might be Cubs fans, people who came here from Chicago, but there are a lot of Diamondbacks fans too.”

DeRosa, on Cubs fans everywhere knowing the team hasn’t won a World Series since 1908: “We can’t carry the weight of 99 years. We can just play good baseball. But we really feel like we have a shot to do this, and that’s a good feeling. It would make it that much sweeter to know we were the team to get it done.”

 Lou Piniella got the hard, cold facts nearly a year ago when he was introduced as the Cubs’ manager. Told it was going on 99 years between World Series winners, Piniella seemed surprised.

“Has it been that long here?” he asked.

Piniella made sure he gave Cubs’ fans hope, dispensing the same optimism they’ve been hearing from a long list of managers during a drought that extends to 1908.

“Urgency is important,” he said. “We’re going to win here.”

So far, he’s delivered. And that’s why the mere mention of his name brings out a long chorus of “Louuuuuuu” from the long-suffering followers, several thousand of whom showed up for a rainy downtown rally Monday.

The NL Central champion Cubs open the playoffs Wednesday at Arizona. There were times this season when it appeared Piniella’s promise might not be met and the postseason was as far away as ever.

During a season that started slowly with the Cubs dropped to 22-31 in June and 8 1/2 games out of first later that month, Piniella acknowledged that the task was even tougher than he anticipated. Producing a “Cubbie Swagger” took time and even more mixing and matching of personnel from a man who’s spent most of his life in the game.

Seventeen years ago, Piniella he led the Cincinnati Reds to a four-game sweep over the favored Oakland Athletics to win the World Series. His Seattle teams won as many as 116 games during the regular season, but never got to the World Series. After an unsuccessful run with his hometown Tampa Bay Devil Rays and some time in the TV booth, his task is getting the Cubs back to the Series for the first time since 1945.

That’s the year, legend has it, that the Cubs were cursed after a tavern owner and his goat were ejected from Wrigley Field during the World Series.

Supposed curses are one thing. Collapses much more real.

Chicago appeared on the verge of another one last week when the Cubs lost three straight to the lowly Florida Marlins, Piniella kept the team loose as possible, even inviting comedian Bill Murray, a longtime Cubs’ fan, to hang out around the batting cage before one game.

It didn’t produce a win in Miami, but the Cubs regrouped and clinched last Friday in Cincinnati. The slogan as champagne flowed was: There is work yet to be done.

“We’ve waited a long time,” Cubs Hall of Famer Billy Williams said.

After a 96-loss, last-place finish in 2006 that led to the departures of chief executive officer Andy MacPhail and manager Dusty Baker, the Cubs committed $300 million during the offseason for salaries. That came after club president John McDonough promised the goal was to win the World Series.

The Cubs won the major leagues’ weakest division. But last year, the St. Louis Cardinals finished first at just 83-79, then got on a roll at the right time and beat Detroit in the World Series.

“You got to get in, and then anything can happen,” Cubs second baseman Mark DeRosa said.

Chicago found that out so painfully four years ago, in Baker’s first season, when they blew a three-games-to-one lead against the Marlins in the NL championship series.

The Cubs were ahead 3-0 in the eighth inning of Game 6 — five outs from the World Series — when the Marlins put together an eight-run inning. Florida beat Kerry Wood — now a middle and setup reliever — in Game 7 and went on to win the World Series.

In addition to Wood, the Cubs have several key players with postseason experience: Cliff Floyd, Aramis Ramirez, Jacque Jones, Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis, Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano, Jason Kendall, DeRosa, Bob Howry, Scott Eyre and most especially Derrek Lee, who helped the Marlins beat the Cubs four years ago.

Maybe, just maybe, this finally will be the season Cubs’ fans refer to when they say: “Wait ’til next year.” They’re facing a first-round opponent that beat them four times in six meeting this season. That doesn’t seem to matter now.

“The real pressure is getting to the playoffs. And they’ve been through that,” Piniella said last weekend. “I’ve talked to the team a little bit, but I think the experience they’ve gone

The Detroit Lions did it all in a record-breaking fourth quarter, scoring on the ground, through the air on defense and special teams.The new-look win took the place of a here-we-go again loss for a team that used to be the NFL’s laughingstock.

“Luck is turning our way,” Roy Williams said after Detroit beat the Chicago Bears 37-27 Sunday. “We’re a 3-1 ballclub and not a lot of teams can say that.”

No other team in league history can say they scored 34 points in the final quarter as Detroit did against the defending NFC champions, and no game included a combined 48 points in the fourth.

“We collapsed as a team at the end of the game,” Bears coach Lovie Smith said.

Chicago (1-3) led 13-3 after three quarters in a terribly played game before both teams scored three times as many points in the final 15 minutes.

“It was a big finish,” Williams said.

The Bears insist they’re not finished, even though their quarterback change backfired and their banged-up team is reeling.

“Our season is not over,” Brian Urlacher said. “But we have to get better.”

“We stink right now.”

Brian Griese, starting in place of Rex Grossman, had three interceptions.

Still, the Bears still had a chance to win.