For Cubs fans, playoffs can’t come soon enough

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CHICAGO -- It’s still six hours until game time, but Eric and Terri Stalter -- clad in souvenir Cubs shirts and hats -- are taking the Red Line train north from downtown Chicago to the Addison Street stop, one block from Wrigley Field.

The Dodgers play the Cubs here tonight in Game 1 of the National League Divisional Series, which Cubs fans hope will be step one in the team’s march to its first World Series championship in 100 years.

Why arrive so early? ‘Because it’s Wrigley, it’s baseball in October,’ said Eric, adding that the couple already had driven two hours from their home in Fisher, Ill., to Chicago. ‘I’ve been to a lot of games since I was a kid, but never been to baseball in October at Wrigley Field.’

They’re also excited that the Chicago White Sox qualified for the American League playoffs, the first time both Chicago teams have played in the postseason since 1906.

‘It’s also nerve-wracking,’ Eric said. ‘The pessimist Cubs fan thinks we’re going to the World Series and have to play the White Sox, then listen to it for the rest of our lives if the White Sox beat us.’

Another Cubs fan on the train, Billy Imber, is carrying a foot-high plastic gnome sporting a Cubs hat, a souvenir for his house that’s near Wrigley Field. ‘I live right around the corner from the park, so I’ll probably have to put it in the back so Dodger fans don’t steal it,’ he joked.

Imber, too, is excited about both Chicago teams making the playoffs, but issued a warning: ‘Knock on wood, if both teams go to the Series, nothing will get done in this city. Nothing. For a week. It will just be shut down.’

-- Jim Peltz