By Bob Markus

No mas. I surrender. I've finally found the antidote for my seemingly incurable case of Cubs' fever. Thank you, Alfonso Soriano. Thank you, Ryan Dempster. Thank you, Aramis Ramirez. I always thought that to be a Cubs fan was to be shackled forever to a dream--a bad dream. A Cubs fan is born, not made. A Cubs fan can no more stop being a Cubs fan than he can stop the rotation of the earth around the sun. To a Cubs fan, the boys in blue ARE the sun. His credo is: The sun will come out tomorrow.

No it won't.

There is no tomorrow for this wretched tease of a franchise. All their tomorrows were used up in the hideous three-game meltdown last week that finally freed me from a lifetime of enslavement. I've lived 1,000 dreams with the Chicago Cubs and died 1,000 deaths. But, no mas. Never again.

The Cubs did not just lose a National league division playoff to the Los Angeles Dodgers, they lost their self-respect. They lost their dignity. And at long, long last, they lost me. What a relief! I no longer will have to awaken at 1 in the morning and rush to my computer to find out how the Cubs did on the west coast. I no longer will have to worry about whether Soriano will break his slump or Kerry Woods will break a toe or Carlos Zambrano will break a bat over his knee.

I'll always have my Cubs' memories. I'll have my yesterdays, But I won't have my tomorrows. Nor, I'm now convinced, will the Cubs themselves. No matter how well they perform during the regular season, no matter how many games they win, how many baseballs they send over the ivy walls of Wrigley and onto Sheffield Avenue, when playoff time rolls around they'll choke.

That is perhaps too harsh a word. I can remember sitting in the Yankees dugout one day in 1979 and talking with Tommy John, whom I'd known since his days as a White Sox rookie. Michigan State had just beaten Indiana State for the NCAA championship a few weeks earlier, and I said that Larry Bird, who had been practically a one-man team for the previously unbeaten Sycamores, had choked down the stretch. John was more than incensed. He was outraged. "Never say that," he rasped. "Never say an athlete choked."

I'm sorry, Tommy, but what am I supposed to say when a Soriano, one of baseball's highest paid performers, constantly swings--and misses--at balls two feet off the plate? What am I to say when Ramirez, the Cubs' leading r.b.i. man, known for his clutch hitting, pounds the ball futility into the dirt on at bat after at bat with runners on base? What am I to say when Dempster, with his gaudy 14-3 record at Wrigley Field, walks seven men and, almost inevitably, gives up a grand slam homer, to set the tone for the entire three-game fiasco? What am I supposed to say when a sure-handed second baseman and a Gold Glove first baseman kick successive double play balls that lead to four unearned runs?

All right, I'll take it back. The Cubs didn't choke. They just succumbed to the pressure of their 100 years of World Series futilty and the corresponding expectations of their fans. Oh, well, as Jack Brickhouse used to say: "Anyone can have a bad century." But, then, as Al Jolson used to say: "You ain't seen nothing yet."

I've seen enough. I've been a Cubs' fan for nearly 70 years. I was 7-years-old when I got my first glimpse of Wrigley Field. It was a double header on the Fourth of July in 1941 against the St. Louis Cardinals and I'll never forget the sight of the Cardinals' outfielders--Johnny Hopp, Terry Moore, and Country Slaughter--chasing down fly balls as gracefully as gazelles during fielding practice. During the war years, when my father was in the army, serving in Attu in the Aleutian islands, my mother would take me to the ball park on ladies day, when she got in free and I think I paid 25 cents. I remember seeing the New York Giants with player-manager Mel Ott, whose odd batting style--he used to raise his right leg two feet off the ground before exploding into the pitch--belied his 511 career home runs.

It was while watching a game at Wrigley that I discovered I needed glasses;I couldn't read the numbers on the players' backs, as my uncle dutifully reported to my mother when we got home. I was in the center field bleachers for the famous "home run inside the glove" play when Andy Pafko insisted he had caught a sinking liner by the Cardinals' Glenn Nelson and held the ball in the air for the umpires to see while Nelson circled the bases. I had an unobstructed view and I was wearing my glasses and I can tell Andy with certitude that he trapped the ball.

I was in the upper grandstand when Don Cardwell pitched his no-hitter in his first start for the Cubs and I was in the press box when Kenny Holtzman pitched his first no-hitter. That was in 1969 and we were all certain it was an omen, that next year was here. It wasn't, of course, even though the Cubs had three future Hall-of-Famers--Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins--on the roster and, a fourth, Ron Santo, who should be in the Hall.

The Cubs had a better team than the New York Mets, who won the World Series that year, just as they had a better team than the Dodgers this year. If there is anyone I feel sorry for it is Santo, who wears his broken Cubbie heart on his sleeve every day. I'm sure that Santo, as down as he must be after this latest heartbreak, will recover in time and next spring, when the players report to spring training in February, he will hear the crack of the bat and the crackle of a fastball smacking the catcher's mitt and his spirit will bloom again. He will believe again.

Not me. I've finally given up on the notion that the Cubs will even reach the World Series, let alone win it, in my lifetime. I'll probably still watch some of their games. But not as many. In my heart, I suppose, I'll still care. But not as deeply. I've been in love with the Cubs my whole life, but now I've lost my respect for them. I want a divorce.