Well, for a while anyway.

The way I had it figured, the Cubs would wrap up their National League Championship Series in six games and be waiting to play the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Obviously, that’s dumb thinking when it comes to the Cubs.

I started realizing it again when I was in the Denver airport Sunday. After arriving from Phoenix, I hurried to a restaurant in the airport. There’s a bar attached to it and I figured the bartender would have the Cubs-Marlins game on TV.

He didn’t. He had an NFL game on the tube.

[Well, I really couldn’t come down too hard on the guy. Even though I thought the Cubs and Marlins were the only game in town, why would a bartender in Denver think that?]

An NFL game—any NFL game—was the last thing I wanted to be watching on Sunday, Oct. 12. So I kept walking, then happened to see an overflow crowd in a sports bar inside the airport watching various games on TV.

The Cubs game was on the big screen. A guy I recognized from the Phoenix-to-Denver flight was sitting in the front row, and there was an empty seat next to him.

"Anybody sitting there?" I asked.

"No, have a seat," he said.

Sunday’s game, you’ll recall was the one in which Josh Beckett pitched a two-hitter in Florida’s 4-0 victory over the Cubs.

Josh Beckett might as well have been Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale or Bob Gibson. The Cubs couldn’t hit him with a two-by-four.

It was the kind of game that I saw far too much of in what was somewhat of a magical season for the Cubs. The Cubs had a habit of making various pitchers—some of them second-rate pitchers--look like Cy Young about every 10 days.

Not to say Beckett is second-rate. Actually, I’d rate him better than Kerry Wood and on a par with Mark Prior. But the way he antagonized Chicago’s hitters on that Sunday provided a strong indication of what was going to happen in the final two games of the series.

With Prior pitching, the Cubs should have wrapped up the series Tuesday night, but couldn’t.

That was the game in which that poor fan tried to catch a foul ball and wound up being labeled the worst thing that had happened to the franchise since the College of Coaches.

It won’t shock me at all to see the Marlins win the World Series. In fact, I hope they do.

Meanwhile, talk all you want about the Cubs being cursed. Talk all you want about goats and black cats. General Manager Jim Hendry did a wonderful job of robbing Pittsburgh and Los Angeles of good players before and during the season, but until he gets some relief pitchers that can do the job the Cubs are never going to get to the World Series.

Goats and black cats didn’t serve up the pitches Dave Veres, Antonio Alfonseca and Kyle Farnsworth did.

Dusty Baker is an adequate manager. He’s never going to out-manage anyone, but the players like him and they play hard for him. At least I didn’t hear that Farnsworth fell asleep in the clubhouse this season the way he did last summer. He body-slammed that pitcher from Cincinnati when he was challenged, and that made everyone stand up and take notice.

The Cubs proved to the hated St. Louis Cardinals that they’re in this thing for the long haul. Chicago isn’t quite there yet, but I remain confident a World Series is in the not-too-distant future.

At least I hope so. People my age are running out of time.