Who said the Cubs were going to win the World Series? Who said their manager would be crowned King of Chicago?

Right now, after the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the Cubs out of the playoffs 1-2-3, Lou Piniella is about as popular on the north side of Chicago as Steve Bartman. Piniella was 11 wins away from being crowned king or even more impressive, being deified. Eleven wins could be a lot, but the Cubs compiled the best won-lost record in the National League during the season and were considered the favorite to win the N.L. pennant and advance to the World Series, which they haven’t won since 1908.

They aren’t going to win it in 2008. They ensured that failure with their anemic effort against the Dodgers. Now the franchise has gone an even 100 years without winning the World Series. That’s a 1 and two zeroes - 100. No other team has gone 100 years without winning a World Series.

The Cubs, pre-Piniella, were five outs away from going to the World Series in 2003. They had a three games-to-two lead over the Florida Marlins and a 3-0 lead in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the N.L. championship series. Luis Castillo lofted a foul pop near the Wrigley Field left field stands, and left fielder Moises Alou ran to the spot and prepared to catch the descending baseball.

And then Bartman stuck out his right arm in an attempt to snare the ball for himself. Alou insisted he would have caught the ball had Bartman not interfered, but he had no guarantee. The ball might have fallen just beyond his glove into the stands.

But the truth is the Marlins, aided by a Cubs error, scored eight runs in the inning and won the game, 8-3. They also won Game 7. The Cubs haven’t won a post-season game since. They have, in fact, lost nine consecutive post-season games, the last six under Piniella.

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Home runs and runs were down for the second successive season this year, but do not jump to conclusions.

It would be easy to speculate that the absence of steroids and amphetamines has had a debilitating effect on hitters, resulting in fewer home runs being hit and fewer runs scored. But the reduced numbers aren’t unique to the years when testing scared players off the stuff.

It wasn’t that many years ago that the major leagues experienced a similar dropoff in home runs and runs scored. We need to go back only to 2001 and 2002, courtesy of Elias Sports Bureau, to find the last time those figures fell for two successive seasons.

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When Richard Daley was the fabled mayor of Chicago, he was simply that - Mayor Daley. Well, maybe he was also Boss Daley. But for all of his power and his influence and his rigid rule, he had nothing on what Lou Piniella would be if the Chicago Cubs win the World Series later this month.

Piniella, the manager of the Cubs, would be the Monarch of Michigan Avenue, the Rajah of Rush Street, the Sultan of State Street. He would be King Louis I. And even that title wouldn’t do justice to the way Cubs fans would embrace him. They would deify Piniella as a baseball god, a baseball god who was sent to the north side of Chicago to liberate the Cubs and their fans from a century of purgatory.

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