Cubs win division championship

CHICAGO -- Eric Karros' camcorder has been busy the last month, capturing the experience he says every player should have at least once -- a season in Chicago.\nWhat the first baseman saw in his viewfinder this weekend was a jubilant celebration, a city and team sharing a division championship, a rare occurrence for the Chicago Cubs.\nNow after manager Dusty Baker got the Cubs to the playoffs in his first season, Karros hopes to keep on recording. The Cubs open the playoffs Tuesday in Atlanta.\n"Obviously when you play here, you hear about the gloom and doom of what always happens here or what historically has happened," Karros said.\n"I'll tell you what. From day one, Dusty has preached look ahead and don't look back."\nA young pitching staff whose four primary starters -- Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano and Matt Clement -- all cracked 200 innings and had double-digit victories was one of the keys to the Cubs' first division title since 1989.\nThey clinched the NL Central Saturday by sweeping a doubleheader from the Pirates.\nGeneral manager Jim Hendry made a major deal in the offseason, getting Mark Grudzielanek and Karros from the Dodgers for the struggling Todd Hundley. After the All-Star game, with emerging star Corey Patterson lost with a knee injury, Hendry did some of his best work.\nIn two deals with the Pirates, he acquired center fielder Kenny Lofton, third baseman Aramis Ramirez and first baseman Randall Simon, and they helped the Cubs go 19-7 in September headed into Sunday's season finale.\n"When you have a manager like we got, you can change and shuffle the deck a little bit," Hendry said. "You can add four or five new guys around the (trade) deadline and you know he's going to blend them in to the team concept.\n"I knew from the first day of spring training that we had the right guy running this club."\nThe Cubs overcame their biggest distraction in early June when star Sammy Sosa was caught using a corked bat, leading to a seven-game suspension.\n"When that thing happened to me, I wasn't in the best mood, but I knew we always had a great team and I knew what we could do," Sosa said.\nSosa also went to the disabled list with a bad toenail and survived an early-season beaning to finish with his sixth straight 40-homer season and ninth straight year of 100 RBIs.\nPatterson, who was having a breakout season, hurt his knee when he hit the first base bag in July. Prior also went to the DL after hurting his shoulder in a scary collision with Atlanta's Marcus Giles on the basepaths.\nBut once he returned, he was one of baseball's most dominant pitchers, going 10-1 since Aug. 4.\nAnd Grudzielanek, one of the team's most consistent hitters, broke his hand and missed a month late in the season before returning at the beginning of September. He batted over .400 in the final two weeks.\nLofton gave the Cubs the pesky leadoff hitter and defensive presence in center they needed, just as he did last year when he joined Baker and the Giants after a trade from the White Sox.\nAnd Joe Borowski, who spent 11 years in the minors before joining the Cubs two seasons ago, developed into a reliable closer.\nBaker's ability to blend talents and egos got most of the credit for taking the Cubs from 67 wins a year ago to a division title.\n"You go out and have a guy like Dusty, anything can happen. Once it started, we kept going," Lofton said.\n"I had the opportunity to play against him for 10 or 11 years in the Western division," Karros said.\n"When you see this guy at the top of the steps with the toothpick and the wristbands, you think you're not just playing against the players."\nBaker sold the Cubs on winning and then delivered right away.\n"I was just trying to get it together as soon as possible and win every day," said Baker, a three-time Manager of the Year with the Giants.\n"What are the chances of me leaving San Francisco, coming to Chicago and we win right away? Those weren't great odds. So, there's more to it than just me coming here"