Anyone who knows me knows I get caught up in the minutae of Cubs, largely because the Cubs are a grandly symbolic team.

Despite what they accomplish this year, I imagine the Cubs have captured the imagination of many sports fans because they are a study in endurance, futility, disappointment, and hope as they annually try to do what so many other sports franchises around them seem to accomplish much easier- a league championship. In many ways, they year to year are a team of utility players, burdened with accomplishing something their recent predecessors could not- a trophy and rings all around. Usually rostered with non-descript players for a city that prides itself on blue collar accomplishments, the Cubs make a good candidate for the Everyman’s club. They want to win. They get close, and then they fail. They build your expectations, only to let them down in the end. But they are your team, and you hope for them, kind of like they were a group of your kids, or at least kids from your neighborhood.

And they have a long history of futility and disappointments. As everyone knows, they last went to a World Series in 1945. And won one in 1908.

But like Sisyphus eternally pushing the boulder up the hill, every new season, Cubs fans think something will possibly change. This could be the year they go far, they win it all.

It looks like Theo Epstein and his people may really be the ones who can overturn history and precedent. They did it in Boston for a Red Sox organization that, prior to 2004, had not won a World Series since 1918- an epoch of frustration almost as long as these Cubs have known. The Cubs right now, this year, have dominated the major leagues in pretty much every statistical department- offensively, defensively, in pitching- and this roster is as loaded as any team has ever seen.

Last night, in low-key fashion, the Cubs lost a game to Milwaukee, and a few hours later, the Giants beat the Cardinals, which numerically still gave the 93-53 Cubs the NL Central crown- with 16 games left in the regular season.

Cubs fans are ecstatic for another team milestone in this year of milestones.

But the big hills lie ahead- a National League pennant, and a World Series crown- and Cubs fans are also aware of history, that for this organization, things inexplicably break, in the biggest spotlights, at the moments most pregnant with emotion and expectation.

The Cubs clinched! Now the serious work begins- holding history at bay for another month and a half.

And hopefully changing it.