So the Red Sox won the World Series.

I guess that hadn’t happened in a while.

Seriously, unless you spent the last three weeks clinically dead, you have to have heard at least somewhere (Kristie saw it on the Weather Channel) about Boston’s ability to finally win a World Series for the first time since 1918.

If you’re a Cubs fan, you know three things relevant to this argument.

1. The Cubs haven’t won since 1908.
2. Boston’s opponent in 1918? That’s right – the Cubs.
3. The Red Sox didn’t even have the longest drought in the American League. That belonged to the White Sox, who last won the big one in 1917, waited a year for the (other) Sox and Cubs to duel it out in ’18 and then threw the Series in 1919, which resulted in the Black Sox scandal and the book/movie “Eight Men Out.”

So how were Cubs fans to feel about Boston’s postseason run, especially given the notion that the Cubs should have at least qualified for the playoffs?

I think most Cubs fans pulled for the Sox. At least someone should get a chance to end the suffering, right? Plus, the Sox had to beat (sweep) the hated Cardinals to win the trophy, although I was much happier to see St. Louis make it that far, because I absolutely hate Houston. I also have Red Sox fans in my family, so it was kind of a no-brainer for me.

But usually, when we pull for the Sox, they don’t come through. We’re not just talking World Series failure here (though the Sox have had plenty, losing four series in dramatic seven game series between 1918 and 2004). They couldn’t win when it counted in the late 80s and late 90s, not to mention the 2003 ALCS against the Yankees. So rooting for the Sox then was easy -– they lost, just like the Cubs would have if they’d had a team good enough to get in a position to choke in October.

I’ve done some thinking, and I don’t think there’s any better way to sum up my emotions than what one fan shared with The Sports Guy in the Red Sox World Series afterglow.:

For Cubs fans, you know what this feels like? I just figured it out a moment ago. It's like having this friend who suffered with you through thick and thin, sharing in your deepest pain and your greatest hopes. Finally, one day, your friend finally gets what you've both been hoping for. And you're really, really happy for them, but you can't deny that you're also jealous. And you're a bit sad, and a bit scared, because you know that from now on, you're going at it alone.

(Also, you have an annoying little brother with the same problem, but nobody gives a crap about him and neither do you.)

-- Adam Rettberg, Chicago

In fact, my favorite thing about the Sox winning is now we will no longer have to suffer through all those newspaper and TV commentators making wry comments like “If the Cubs and Red Sox ever meet in the World Series, the only possible outcome is a 27-inning game seven that ends in a tie when the commissioner decides no team deserves to win.” We don’t have to sit through what Fox gave us last year, alternating shots of the Billy Goat and Babe Ruth, as if both are in the afterlife plotting together how to destroy our spirits and make us weep like children.

No, we just have a lousy baseball team that has exactly three seasons to win it all before 2008, which will be the 100th anniversary of the Cubs’ last World Series title. And things are looking up, because the team really isn’t that lousy anymore.

You know the Cardinals would have killed for just one guy from our starting rotation –- Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Greg Maddux, Carlos Zambrano and Matt Clement – to take a shot at the Red Sox lineup. And we have all five of those guys (Well, -four, because I’m pretty sure Matt Clement has thrown his last pitch for the North Siders). So we’re set there.

And, the Chicago Tribune brings us news today that the New York Mets may be interested in Sammy Sosa, a wonderful development in the bid to clear the team of its biggest cancer (and maybe bring Mark Grace back to work the TV booth, now that we know, also via the Trib, that Steve Stone has called his last game for WGN).

Anyhow, the point is this: We, as Cubs fans, are poised to learn what it’s been like to be Red Sox fans, following a very good team that isn’t quite good enough to win it all. I still hope the Cubs will win it all, but 1984, 1989, 1998 and 2003 taught me never to believe until the final out is recorded.

So we get ready for 2005, knowing that if the Red Sox can win under the “Why not us?” banner Dusty Baker carried for the Cubs in 2003, then certainly the Cubs can do it next season or at some point within my lifetime. We just have to keep hoping, watching and following the Cubs. Some day, it will be our turn, and then we’ll know first-hand what it feels like to be a Red Sox fan right now.

Until then, congratulations to the Sox and to their fans. You deserved an experience like this.