We Are The (NL Central Division) Champions

What goes around, comes around.

The Cubs 6-0 win over the Reds coupled with the Padres 6-3 victory over the Brewers made the Cubs champions of the National League Central Division for the first time since 2003.

The Cubs clinching victory came 159 games after the Cubs stumbled out of the gate in that very same Great American Ball Park. Even Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano acknowledged that.

“This one was very important to me. We started the season here. Before the game, I was thinking: Here we started, and here we finish," Big Z said about clinching in Cincinnati.

Zambrano (18-12, 3.95 ERA) pitched seven strong innings of shutout baseball, en route to his career-high 18th victory.

Left fielder Alfonso Soriano set the tone with a two-strike lead-off home run off Reds starter Bronson Arroyo. Derrek Lee would later add a two-run homer, and that is all the scoring the Cubs would need.

Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, former Cub Greg Maddux picked up the victory over the Brewers when closer Trevor Hoffman struck out Rickie Weeks picking up the save and clinching the Cubs playoff berth.

In a sense, both Zambrano and Maddux pitched the Cubs into the playoffs on Friday night. How's that for stars aligning?

Tonight, I want to reflect on this year.

Watching the 2007 Cubs was like watching a movie about the 2007 Cubs, with the multitude of story lines.

$300 million worth of new players and coaches including the new face of the franchise, manager Lou Piniella. An ownership in flux, led by interim president and former marketing guru John McDonough.

And when the season started, the Brewers raced out to a 24-10 record and the Cubs fell nine games below .500.

While some thought he was asleep at the wheel for the first two months, Piniella was really unraveling the mess brought to him by General Manager Jim Hendry and turned the Cubs into a winning ball club.

It took a hamstring injury to move Soriano from center field to left field. It took a clubhouse fight at the hands of Zambrano for the Cubs to dump fan favorite catcher Michael Barrett. The poor play of Wade Miller and Cesar Izturis combined with the positive contributions of Sean Marshall and Ryan Theriot led to Miller's demise and Izturis' trade to Pittsburgh.

And really, that's where the major difference between Piniella and former Cubs manager Dusty Baker is. Both Piniella and Baker said that they liked young players, however only Piniella walked the walk.

When things went wrong early, Piniella demanded players that could "pitch and catch the damn ball." Everyone from Cubs fans to sports talk radio hosts laughed at Piniella's expense, but in the end it was Piniella and the Cubs having the last laugh.

If not for other strong candidates for Manager of the Year, Piniella would be a shoe in. The way he mixed veteran star power, youthful exuberance and a well-timed tirade will not soon be forgotten by Cubdom.

One of the most memorable Piniella moments (besides the tirade that "kick"-started the Cubs second half run) was when he called for Theriot to lay down a suicide squeeze in the 9th inning of a 1-1 ballgame against the Chicago White Sox and their ace closer Bobby Jenks. It was successful, and the Cubs would win that game and sweep that series in one of the turning points of the 2007 season.

But the manager can only get so much credit. Really, all Piniella did was put his players in the best position to win.

Free-agent signee Mark DeRosa proved to be the Cubs MVP (Most Versatile Player.) DeRosa made at least one appearance at each position in the infield, as well as both left and right field. As the year went on, DeRosa would become one of the Cubs clubhouse and on field leaders.

Carlos Marmol, who baseball analyst Steve Stone last year said that Marmol was miscast as a starting pitcher and was better suited as a late inning pitcher, proved Stone to be right. Marmol excelled as Piniella's bullpen ace, notching 95 strikeouts in 68 and 1/3 innings.

Jason Marquis, another free agent signee, put his horrid 2006 behind him and posted a 12-9 record with a 4.43 ERA as a starter--proving (for one year at least) that his 6.02 ERA in '06 was a fluke.

Ted Lilly, who was signed while Hendry was in a hospital bed, put up ace-like numbers (15-8) and was 9-2 after a Cubs loss.

The group that won't get as much credit as they should is the Tribune Company. For years, Cubs fans (like myself) pined for the Tribsters to spend the cash that the fans put into that team. Crane Kenney and Dennis FitzSimons deserve a lot of the credit for allowing McDonough and Hendry to spend the right amount of money on the right guys

LOOKING AHEAD

The Cubs will now head out west to play the Arizona Diamondbacks, winners of the NL West and will throw out Zambrano and Lilly in games one and two of the NLDS, which is scheduled to begin on Wednesday night in Arizona.

Winning the division was only the first step. The magic number now stands at 11. 11 being the number of games the Cubs need to win in order to win their first World Series since 1908.