(with all credit to the late Jack Buck for the headline)

Walking down Sheffield back to my car, I ran into a man wearing a BCB shirt -- sorry, I didn't even get your name -- and we shook hands and hardly even knew what to say about the Cubs' incredible, dramatic, awesome, breathtaking, electrifying, exciting, gripping, intense, moving, riveting, sensational 7-6 win over the Brewers. (Yes, I got all those from thesaurus.com.) We marveled over the comeback, the ups and downs, and he walked one way and I walked the other... and I still almost can't believe it.

There have been quite a number of incredible comebacks this season -- the comeback from being down 9-0 to Colorado on May 30 comes first to mind, along with being down 5-0 to the Marlins in the third on July 27 and winning 9-6. There are others. But I don't think I have ever seen, ever, in all the years I've watched baseball, a last-of-the-ninth comeback that good -- two out, nobody on base, down four runs, and having it capped by a three-run, no-doubt-about-it, first-pitch homer by Geovany Soto. He was the frontrunner for Rookie of the Year anyway; I suspect that clinches it, and it might get him some MVP votes, too. But as Lou said in his postgame press conference, "Let's knock two more numbers down, then we can talk about awards." (And let's stop talking about when we 'want' the Cubs to clinch, too -- just do it!)

Amen, Lou. And here, I was getting ready to write a scathing criticism of Lou for the way he mismanaged the sixth inning into a four-run rally for the Brewers. Not for putting Jeff Samardzija in the game -- although Samardzija didn't have much, it was Mark DeRosa's error that opened the door for the four unearned runs, and that's a play DeRo makes 99 times out of 100. No, it was for not bringing in Neal Cotts to turn Ray Durham around, after Mike Cameron had driven in the first run of the inning. Durham's hitting .305 lefthanded and .224 righthanded this year. Why wouldn't you want a lefty pitching to him?

Lou seems to have an aversion to the LOOGY idea -- and I'm not married to it, like Dusty Baker was -- but this was absolutely, positively the situation to use it. Instead, Samardzija was left in, and predictably, Durham singled in a run. It took two more hits and a walk before Lou finally yanked him for Randy Wells. Wells walked in a run before ending the carnage.

And then it started turning around. Wells retired the next seven hitters he faced; give the guy credit. He's not really a prospect at age 26, and he won't be on any playoff roster (at this rate, neither will Samardzija), but he kept the game close and then, after Cotts finally got into the game in the 9th, he gave up a leadoff double to Prince Fielder -- that's when good defense helped the Cubs out... the Brewers ran themselves into two outs on the basepaths, setting up the incredible bottom of the ninth.

Dave said he had never heard the ballpark that loud -- and that's with about 20% of the crowd having left early, too.

The game moved on, with neither team being able to capitalize on opportunities. Carlos Marmol threw a 1-2-3 tenth, and Kerry Wood had excellent stuff in striking out the side in the 11th -- then he ran into trouble in the 12th, but got out of it in a way you hardly ever see (and having thrown 33 pitches today, won't be available tomorrow. Marmol threw only 12 pitches, and so will likely close on Friday if needed). I hate the pulled-in infield, because so many times you'll see a ball that would ordinarily be an out with normal defensive positioning get through for a hit. Today, two balls were hit right to fielders, one for an easy 4-3 play, the other catching J. J. Hardy off third base in a rundown. The Cubs had a shot at it in the last of the 11th with the winning run on third -- Felix Pie, forced in to pinch-hit after Jim Edmonds was tossed -- but Soto's ball didn't quite have enough to get over Mike Cameron's head.

And that set up D-Lee's heroics, following a leadoff walk to Daryle Ward (it almost didn't seem as if he knew he had walked, with no signal from plate umpire Ed Rapuano. This crew did a horrendous job the entire series -- to assign a crew with two umpires as bad as Joe West and C. B. Bucknor to a series like this was a real, real bad decision by MLB schedulers), and Jason Marquis, pinch-running, scoring the winning run on Lee's single. Before that, D-Lee had gone 0-for-5 and hit into his 26th DP of the year, one short of Ron Santo's dubious 1973 team record. It's nice to see him get a huge hit like that and it just shows, once again, how much of a team this is, with every single member contributing to victories.

All of this was hours after Rich Harden threw an alarming 115 pitches in five innings, having good stuff but absolutely no command, walking six, but giving up only one hit, a double to Durham in the fifth, and walking in a run in the first inning. After having watched Harden throw 29 pitches to the first five hitters, Larry Rothschild went out to have a word with him. Whatever he said turned on a switch, because Harden retired the next ten hitters he faced, at one point striking out five in a row, and though the Brewers loaded the bases in the fifth, he got out of it with an easy fly to right.

There really are no further superlatives I can write -- I'm all out of 'em. Last winter, sort of on a lark, I did a "top 20 Cub HR of all-time" list. Geo's no-doubt-about-it, first-pitch blast today would jump into the top five. In one week I've been lucky enough to be in attendance at my first Cub no-hitter and the most dramatic last-of-the-ninth rally I've ever seen. And it has to be a devastating blow to the Brewers' wild-card hopes, even with them playing the Reds and Pirates the next six games. At this writing the Mets have a 3-0 lead over the Nats in the 3rd inning; the Mets could take a 1.5 game lead over Milwaukee (or even take over the NL East lead if the Phillies lose).

Ain't this great? Press this one in your memory books forever. Now, on to clinching in the next two days, and getting the job done in October.

Click here and here for my scorecard from today's game; it took two separate sheets to finish!

We stand on the cusp of history every single night, or so it seems. Last night's thrilling 5-4 Cubs win over the Brewers, reducing the magic number to four (thanks to the Marlins' 5-1 win over the Astros, the quirky little possibility that the Cubs could sweep Milwaukee yet not clinch the Central was eliminated), and also gave the Cubs 52 wins at home in 2008. That's the most home victories in a season since 1935 -- breaking the previous high, 51, set in 1984. (I've added a right sidebar box listing the top win seasons at home.)

Leaving the ballpark, it seemed there were way more people milling around Sheffield and Waveland than usual -- people starting to come down to the area just to soak in the atmosphere, even without tickets, and this is only going to increase over the next few days... and hopefully, deep into October.

Those who did have tickets saw a game in which none of the Cubs pitchers threw with their "A" game -- Ryan Dempster labored through six innings, giving up no runs and striking out nine through five, allowing only Prince Fielder's shot onto Sheffield that looked like it was going to hit the just-past-full moon rising over the bleachers; that made the score 3-2 and though Dempster trudged out to the mound to start the 7th (surprising us), Lou had no intention of letting him go past the 114 pitches he did throw.

The bullpen struggled. Carlos Marmol threw pretty well -- but Fielder hit his second homer of the day off him, muscling a ball to the opposite field, to bring the Brewers back to within a run after Alfonso Soriano had homered in the bottom of the seventh. Then Kerry Wood -- who we noticed in the bleachers had almost none of his best stuff while warming up -- fired up the radar gun to 96 and 97 MPH once he hit the mound. Even then, he gave up two hits and a run before floating a gorgeous breaking pitch right over the center of the plate, fooling Fielder for a game-ending K, as the crowd got just about as loud as I've heard it all year.

Earlier, two fine fielding plays -- one by Mark DeRosa, one by Reed Johnson, both flat-out dives to get sinking liners -- had helped keep the Brewers in check. Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee pulled off a nice DP to end the sixth, a play that got Brewers 1B coach Ed Sedar tossed, arguing that Lee had taken his foot off the bag; replays appeared to show that he had made the play. Meanwhile, Milwaukee was also keeping the Cub offense down with some nice fielding plays -- particularly one bouncer up the middle that J. J. Hardy prevented from being a hit. It was a well-played game, tense and exciting all the way through, something we should hope and expect to see continuing as we make our way to and through October.

Dave and I had a long discussion about whether a team should celebrate a division title on the field (he claimed the Yankees never did, just high-fiving and then leaving the field). He said no -- that should be reserved for winning the pennant or World Series. I disagree. Celebrating a division title is the celebration you have earned for success over the long six-month road to the postseason. It doesn't mean there isn't more work to be done -- obviously, once you get in you want to win -- but I think any team that's made the playoffs has earned the right to celebrate it, particularly in front of its own fans if the schedule breaks that way.

We hope that'll be soon, perhaps even by tomorrow. After that rough stretch to begin this month, the Cubs have won five in a row, gotten back to break-even in September (6-6) and look as good as they have all season. Since a 3-2, extra-inning loss to the Marlins on July 26, they are 31-14 -- their best 45-game stretch since they went an identical 31-14 from June 30-August 18, 1989. What perfect timing to go into the postseason.

If last night's 6-4 Cubs win over the Brewers had been a postseason game, it would have become legendary.

The game had so many memorable elements -- three lead changes, power galore from the Brewers, clutch pitching from Cub relievers, and a suddenly-hot Alfonso Soriano helping lead the charge with a double, homer and stolen base.

Let's get this quibble out of the way right now, then -- Soriano almost embarrassed himself in the first inning when he went into a home run trot on his deep fly ball to left, only to see it come up just short of "over the wall" and had to hustle into second base, just safe. Fortunately, he scored moments later on Derrek Lee's single.

Another moment that might have been seen as a momentum-turner had the Cubs not come back and won was 3B coach Mike Quade's ill-advised decision to send D-Lee home from second on Mark DeRosa's single in the sixth with the Cubs up 2-0 and only one out. Lee, still apparently slowed from having fouled a ball off his knee a couple of innings earlier, was thrown out easily. I started to have a "Wavin' Wendell" flashback. And when J. J. Hardy and Ryan Braun homered in the last of the sixth off Ted Lilly (just about the only things Lilly did wrong last night) to tie the game, all of us had visions of the power-laden Brewers running away with the game.

But darned if it didn't happen. The Cubs got a break in the 7th when Rickie Weeks threw away a DP relay throw (on yet another Lee grounder that could have been an inning-ending DP); credit to Reed Johnson for an excellent slide that broke up the DP. An earned run scored on the FC, and another one on the error, giving the Cubs the lead back.

Which was promptly coughed up by Bob Howry, allowing a pinch-HR to Russell Branyan.

OK, so I'm not going to yell "DFA Howry!!" here. But I seriously wonder why Lou keeps putting him in these situations, when he hasn't proven he can handle lower-pressure affairs like the game in Arizona last week, and especially considering Howry's flat fastball (CSN's pitch speed meter had that one at 90 MPH) is like raw meat to a hungry power hitter like Branyan. Once again, Scott Eyre sat gathering mold in the bullpen last night. It appears Eyre's on the trading block, possibly to the Rays, Red Sox or Tigers.

You could, I am sure, feel the tension through your TV, if you were watching -- I did -- as Chad Gaudin struck out the side in the 8th inning, and then as the Cubs put together their winning rally, helped out by two key walks to Soriano and the Wonder Hamster, and then D-Lee's double slicing down the RF line, to cheers just as loud from the large Cub fan contingent at Miller Park last night -- they set a record with their 8th consecutive sellout, and of course expect to sell out the rest of the series.

Carlos Marmol looked fine last night in closing, even when he had apparently struck Gabe Kapler out to end the game, only to be forced to throw one more pitch when the umpires ruled that Geovany Soto didn't catch a pitch swung at by Kapler. That was the ruling, right? Why couldn't Soto have just tagged Kapler out? Doug Eddings, the umpire who A. J. Pierzynski snookered in the 2005 ALCS, was the 3B umpire last night. With a chance for redemption, he did nothing. Anyway, all ended well when Kapler flied to left.

Whew! What a night, and that's just the first of four, with playoff intensity, and the Cubs made a huge statement by defeating CC Sabathia. If Carlos Zambrano -- who has pitched very well in his career in Milwaukee -- can win tonight, the pitching matchups tilt into the Cubs' favor starting on Wednesday night -- I can't wait to get up there!

Final note: thanks to BCB reader Hammer, who noticed something that nobody else did -- not the rest of us, nor the players, nor the official scorer -- the umpires called a balk on Ted Lilly when Lilly had apparently picked Rickie Weeks off second base in the third inning, clearly visible when he replayed the play. The official scorer credited Weeks with a stolen base. In the end, it didn't matter, because Lilly got Hardy and Braun to end the inning with no runs scoring.