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.

That’s no way for Piniella to become King Louis I of Chicago. That may be a way of getting run out of Chicago. Cubs fans are accustomed to losing; heaven knows they have experienced enough of it. But Piniella has painfully teased them.

He arrived at Wrigley Field two years ago with a history of winning, and the Cubs won immediately. That is, they won the division championship. They played Arizona in the first round of the playoffs and quickly went three games and out. That extended their post-season losing streak to six because they lost the last three games to the Marlins in 2003.

As it turned out, the Cubs’ sweep by the Dodgers was remarkably similar to their experience with the Diamondbacks. In the series with Arizona, the Cubs led once in three games, but even that lead was brief.

Geovany Soto hit a two-run home run in the second inning of Game 2 for a 2-0 Cubs lead, but the Diamondbacks scored four runs in their half of the inning. The best the Cubs were able to do in the other two games was a brief 1-1 tie in the series opener.

In the series against the Dodgers, the Cubs also led only once. That instance came in the second inning of the first game when Mark DeRosa slugged a two-run home run. Unlike the Diamondbacks, the Dodgers didn’t come right back and claim the lead for themselves. But they didn’t take long, scoring four runs in the fifth, and they didn’t look back.        

“Six games I’ve managed in the post-season and we scored 12 runs,” Piniella said. “That doesn’t get it done. I’m not making excuses, but we gotta score some runs.”

“We were expecting more,” he added, referring to success, not runs. “We played well during the summer, we won our division convincingly and we thought we would go further in this post-season. We scored 3, 2, 1 —  six runs. Six runs! All I know is you do that during the season and you’re 0 and 3.”

The Cubs did that in the post-season, and they are 0 and 3 and on their way home.

Piniella’s hitters deserve credit for one thing – their remarkable consistency. Last October Alfonso Soriano had 2 hits in 14 at-bats, this time 1 hit in 14 at-bats. Aramis Ramirez last year was 0 for 12, this year 2 for 11. Soto was 1 for 6 a year ago, 2 for 11 this time. Kosuke Fukodome wasn’t part of the Cubs’ putrid play last year, but he joined it this year, getting 1 hit in 10 at-bats.

Of the Cubs’ six runs against the Dodgers, DeRosa drove in four of them. He also hit their lone home run. Last year Soto’s home run was their only one.

In his playing days, Piniella played against the Dodgers in three different World Series. He batted .317, and the Yankees won two of the three times. But he did all of that three decades ago. Hitting is only a memory for him now that he is a manager, and his teams’ performance in his two division series with them produced only painful memories.  

The Cubs are like the story of the boy who cried wolf. In case you don’t remember that one, a shepherd boy repeatedly yells that a wolf is going to eat the village’s sheep, and each time the villagers come running to save them. But there is no wolf. Then one day there really is a wolf, and no one believes the boy when he cries “wolf.”

How are Cubs fans supposed to act next year? If the Cubs again win the division championship, will their fans be able to allow themselves to get excited? Will they dare think about the World Series and 1908?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.