But winning at this time of the year isn’t always all that easy. We are now at that point in the season where “stuff” begins to happen. The Cardinals’ championship pedigree begins to be an advantage, because there are still plenty of men in that clubhouse who are wearing ’06 World Series championship rings who know what it feels like to play in the intense glare of a pennant race. Sometimes the heat of a pennant race can feel comfortable and soothing. But just as often to the unfamiliar (or the weak of heart), the glare can be scorching and unbearable.

Several hours north of here, panic has long since swept through Milwaukee, where the green but growing Brewers relinquished their supposedly insurmountable early season division lead with a disastrous 9-18 record in August. They are still there, but the Brew Crew is taking the tentative steps of neophytes to the serious business at hand.

And if you call it panic in Milwaukee, do we have a Thesaurus large enough to find enough words to describe the fragile emotions in Chicago now that the first-place Cubbies are starting to show the familiar signs of franchise cursed for 98 years?

If this NL Central race was played out on paper, I’d swear by the Cubs in this race between three mediocre ballclubs, only because the Cubs are marginally less mediocre than the Cards and Brewers. So under normal circumstances, that means that Chicago should eke out the division title.

But when is anything ever normal for the terminally anguished Cubs? Remember the Cards and Brewers are simply fighting for their playoff lives. The pitiable Cubs are fighting a dark history full of hexes and things that go bump in the night. Cubs fans are seeing visions of billy goats, that goofy Bartman guy and any other wretched land mammal that is capable of being a vessel for a century’s worth of bad luck.

And from the looks of things, the tension is starting to show. Earlier this month, $91.5 million man Carlos Zambrano continued his late-summer meltdown with a spectacular postgame breakdown. Ever since signing that extravagant contract extension, the Cubs ace has done a nosedive (0-5 and a 9.56 ERA in three starts). Unable to win and suffering a barrage of boos every time he pitches, Zambrano lost it when he was showered with boos after allowing eight earned runs, seven hits and five walks in 4 1/3 innings in an 11-3 loss to the Dodgers.

''I don't accept the fans booing at me,'' said Zambrano, who seemed to be doing just that when he was seen nodding to them, angrily yanking his jersey out of his pants then pointing to his head when he left the contest. ''I thought these fans were the greatest in baseball, but they showed they just care about themselves.”

Slideshow   The Week in Sports Pictures A kayaker flips out, a racehorse eyes the Triple Crown and more. more photos

The fans were booing again the following night, the newspapers and talk radio shows were the incubators for full blown mental breakdowns by the long-suffering Cub fans. It is September, and they know their history. There is something cruel and painful awaiting them at the end of this story, and they all know it. Watching the Cubs in September with a title at stake is like watching a Steven King movie. You twitch and flinch at every turn. You hyperventilate. You sweat. Lots of screaming. Loads of terror. And in the end, someone with a little bear on their chest, gets a stake plunged deep into their hearts and souls.

Meanwhile, in St. Louis, all the Cardinals have to worry are mounting injuries, Albert Pujols dragging around on one leg, Kip Wells and his fragile competitive psyche, Mark Mulder and his uncertain healing, and the creeping feeling that any day now, someone else is going to get hurt. Yet in Cardinal Nation, that just makes everyone smile, because they know it could be a lot worse.

They could be rooting for the Cubs.