11 more wins. That’s all the Cubs need to collect to make the unthinkable thinkable and to set off what will be the most ridiculous party in the history of the city of Chicago. You know HJE has a plan to count this down in style. Below are my top eleven moments of the 2008 season (in chronological order).

1. Fukudome’s Opening Day. Kosuke Fukudome had a hell of a debut with the Cubs. In his first three plate appearances, he reached base three times, with a single, double, and walk. But the Cubs couldn’t put any runs on the board for starter Carlos Zambrano, and found themselves down 3-0 to the Brewers in the bottom of the 9th inning at Wrigley Field on Opening Day. Then-Brewers manager Ned Yost brought in his “closer” Eric Gagne to seal the Cubs’ fate. Gagne gave up a base hit to Derrek Lee and a walk to Aramis Ramirez, bringing Fukudome to the plate with no outs and two runners on. In what would become a familiar scene during the 2008 season, the Brewer bullpen coughed up the lead. Fukudome served Gagne’s fifth pitch deep into the right center field bleachers, sending the Wrigley fans into delirium, particularly this guy.
   
   In what would become another familiar scene, Bob Howry promptly gave the lead back to the Brewers in the top of the 10th inning, and the Cubs lost the game 4-3. But that home run was one hell of a wild moment.
2. The Miracle Comeback: Take One. Tell the truth. When did you stop following the May 30th game between the Cubs and the Rockies at Wrigley Field? When it was 4-0 Rockies after the first inning? When it was 7-0 Rockies after the third inning? When it was 9-1 Rockies after the fifth inning? You should have known better.

   The Cubs were coming off a sweep of the Dodgers at Wrigley and had won the first game against the Rockies for their fourth consecutive win. Oh, and a couple of weeks prior to the game, the Cubs had signed Jim Edmonds off the scrap heap of the San Diego Padres. Keep that in mind. It’ll be important in a minute.

   Aaron Cook of the Rockies was cruising along against the Cubs, and had a 9-1 lead heading into the bottom of the 6th inning. And that’s when all hell broke loose. Micah Hoffpauir led off the 6th with a ground-rule double. Fukudome homered, to make the score 9-3 Rockies (I’m pretty sure Fukudome had two home runs all year, and I just covered them). Edmonds won someone $1,000, going back-to-back with Fukudome to make it 9-4 Rockies. Jon Lieber (remember him?) held the Rockies down in the top of the 7th inning, and then the Cubs’ bats went back to work in the bottom. After Alfonso Soriano led off the inning with a lineout to short, six straight Cubs collected hits. Mike Fontenot singled in front of a Henry Blanco home run that cut the Rockies’ lead to 9-6. Hoffpauir singled before a shell-shocked Cook was lifted in favor of Manny Corpas. Corpas surrendered a single to Fukudome before Edmonds stepped to the plate again and was officially welcomed to the party by all of Cubdom.
   
   The Edmonds double made it a 9-8 Rockies lead. Mark DeRosa stepped to the plate and decided that the Rockies had led for long enough. He launched a two-run homer into the left center field bleachers to give the Cubs a 10-9 lead. Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood made quick work of the Rockies in the 8th and 9th, respectively, and the Cubs won 10-9. The game was important for two reasons. First, it kept alive the Cubs’ winning streak, which eventually reached 9 games and was their longest of the season. Second, it taught all most of the naysayers to never declare this Cubs team “done” until there is a fat lady crooning “Go, Cubs, Go.”

3. Hey, hey! The Cubs had already won their series against the Atlanta Braves, so their Thursday afternoon throwback game was just a cute diversion.
   
   Len had already mentioned that he hoped to pay homage to Jack Brickhouse by calling a home run with his signature “Hey, hey!” He didn’t have a chance all day, until Jim Edmonds stepped to the plate with the Cubs down 2-1 and one out in the 9th inning. Edmonds tied the game with a solo shot, allowing the Cubs to win in walkoff fashion on a Reed Johnson HBP in the bottom of the 11th inning.
   
4. Aramis Sends Us Home Happy Again. It’s fun when the Cubs beat the White Sox. It’s more fun when the Cubs beat them in ridiculously dramatic fashion. On June 20, Ted Lilly kept the Sox in check at Wrigley Field, striking out eight Sox batters and giving up only three runs. Going into the bottom of the ninth (after Kerry Wood pitched around a leadoff double by Brian Anderson in the top of the inning), the Cubs and Sox were tied 3-3 with Aramis Ramirez set to lead off the inning against Scott Linebrink. Aramis greeted Linebrink rudely.
   
   Ridiculous. Doesn’t everyone realize that you do NOT give Aramis Ramirez a chance to win or tie a game in the ninth inning on a Friday afternoon at Wrigley? The dramatic, bat-flipping home run inspired this recent SI cover:
   
5. Some Lucky Bastard Wins $2,000 in One Inning. What would the Cubs do for an encore against the White Sox the day after Aramis’s dramatic walkoff home run? How do you feel about a 9-run fourth inning which included two different sets of back-to-back home runs? The Cubs entered the fourth inning down 4-1 to Jose Contreras and the Sox. Then, the Cubs went ballistic. Edmonds and Mike Fontenot started the fun with back-to-back home runs to cut the lead to one. After a Ryan Theriot walk and a Jason Marquis single, Fukudome singled to score Theriot and tie the game. Eric Patterson (ha!) followed with an RBI single which scored Marquis and gave the Cubs the lead. Derrek Lee singled to score Fukudome. 6-4 Cubs. Aramis (of course) homered to left to make it 9-4 Cubs and chase Contreras before he even knew what hit him. Then Jim Edmonds went back-to-back for the second time that inning to make it 10-4 Cubs. After Edmonds’ home run, Lou Piniella might have made Fontenot the first guy in MLB history to get pulled in the middle of an inning after hitting a home run earlier that same inning.

   I guess Lou was just caught up in the pandemonium.
   
   The Cubs ended up winning the game 11-7 en route to a three-game sweep of their foes to the South.

6. The Cubs Giveth, and the Cubs Taketh Away. Remember how cute it was when the Brewers made a July run at first place in the division, and some Cubs fans started panicking? The Cubs were set for a showdown series against the Brewers up in Milwaukee, with each team sending their four best pitchers to the mound. I think you know what happened. The Cubs went up to Wrigley Field North and depantsed the Brewers for four straight games to swell their lead in the division to five games. The final game was a blowout win over Dave Bush which included this grand slam by Jim Edmonds.
   
7. Ward Goes Fishing. The Cubs hadn’t won in Dolphin Stadium in thirty years or so, and they were looking listless in the top of the 9th inning, down 5-3 to the Marlins. But with Mark DeRosa and Reed Johnson on base with one out and Marlins closer Kevin Gregg on the mound, Lou called on pinch hitter Daryle Ward, who got the job done, blasting a three-run home run into the seats. The blast gave the Cubs a 6-5 lead which they held to win their first game in Dolphin Stadium since 2006.
8. A Nail-Biter in St. Louis. It’s never a surprise when a Cubs-Cardinals game goes right down to the wire, and the first two games of their early September showdown in St. Louis had done just that, with the Cardinals and Cubs splitting the first two games with a pair of 4-3 scores. On Thursday night, I had to drive up to Minnesota, so I turned on the Cubs game, hoping to catch the first three or four innings before my reception of WGN went out. Someone out there didn’t want me to miss this game.

   I got farther and father from Chicago, yet Pat and Ron stuck with me. They were there all the way through Wisconsin and, more importantly, all the way through the ninth inning of the third game of the series. Todd Wellemeyer and Rich Harden both pitched well, but the Cubs were able to squeak across two runs in the 5th inning off a bases-loaded Ryan Theriot walk followed by a Derrek Lee groundout. The Cubs added one more run in the 6th on back-to-back doubles by Mark DeRosa and Mike Fontenot.

   The Cardinals cut the lead to one in the bottom of the 6th on an RBI double by Albert Pujols and a run-scoring single by Felipe Lopez. That ended Harden’s night, and gave Jeff Samardzija, Carlos Marmol, and Kerry Wood a chance to shine. The three slammed the door on the Cardinals’ offense in the last three innings, although Wood made it interesting in the 9th.

   I remember Pat and Ron were counting the number of guys Wood could let on base without having to face Pujols in the 9th, and the number didn’t quite seem big enough. Sure enough, Brendan Ryan led off the bottom of the 9th with a double. Cesar Izturis tried to bunt him over, but Derrek Lee fielded the bunt and threw to Aramis Ramirez at third. Ryan overslid third, and Aramis wisely kept the tag on him for the first out of the inning. Wood surrendered a single to Skip Schumaker, but then struck out Aaron Miles for the second out. I remember thinking, “Please not Pujols. Anyone but Pujols.” For one fleeting moment, I almost hoped that Wood would walk Pujols. But he didn’t. In his typical badass fashion, Wood went right after Pujols and got him to pop out to second base. I think both Ron Santo’s and my heart rate just returned to normal this past weekend. What a great game.
   

9. Astros Run Into Hurricane Carlos. No hits? That’s all they got? No goddamn hits?
   
10. The Miracle Comeback: Take Two. It wasn’t looking good in the rubber match of the last regular-season series at Wrigley Field between the Cubs and the Brewers. The Cubs were down 6-2 with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning and no one on base against Salomon Torres. Then, Aramis doubled. And Edmonds singled to score him. Then, DeRosa singled, so the Cubs had runners on first and third for hands-down NL Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto. Soto served Torres’ first pitch into the bleachers, and suddenly the game was tied.
    
    The Cubs went on to win the game and the series on Derrek Lee’s RBI single in the bottom of the 12th inning.
11. NL Central Champs! There aren’t many people alive who can recall the last time the Cubs won their division in consecutive seasons. On September 20th, they did just that, beating the hated Cardinals 5-4 and setting off a champagne celebration.