Coming into the 2008 season the only talk surrounding the Chicago Cubs was the franchise has not won a World Series in a century (1908). With the team jumping out of the gates having won 14 of its first 20 games, talk has shifted somewhat to a different milestone -- 10,000 wins.

No folks, that last sentence is not a typo, I did not mean to say 10,000 losses, the "lovable losers" as the club has been dubbed after years and decades of seasons filled with futility, is just one win shy of recording win No. 10,000. Only the New York/San Francisco Giants have more wins, with 10,192.

Compare this to the New York Yankees who have won the most World Series titles, with 26, and are still over 700 wins shy of the milestone. In fact, the Cubs have only reached post-season play a total of 15 times in franchise history.

As any die-hard Cubs fan knows, the team has not reached the World Series since 1945. The Cubs have reached the promised land a total of 10 times, with only two championships.

Another statistic that stands out which makes the milestone more outstanding is before the 2003 and 2004 seasons, the club had not produced back-to-back winning seasons since the 1971 and 1972 season, and have not reached the post-season in back-to-back seasons since winning back-to-back World titles in 1907 and 1908.

Here are some interesting facts retrieved from the Cubs web site for those interested. The Cubs first win came all the way back on April 25, 1876. The manager was Albert Spalding. Sixty-four years later, July 19, 1940, the club recorded win No. 5,000 against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

And now, nearly sixty-eight years later the Chicago Cubs are on the verge of becoming only the second team in Major League history to register win No. 10,000. Who will be the infamous victim? The Cubs, who are winners of five straight games, started a short two-game series in the mile-high city against the Colorado Rockies Wednesday night, then will be off to the nations capitol to face the Washington Nationals for a three-game series Friday.

Going into Wednesday night's game against the Rockies, who reached their first World Series last season in their brief 14-year history last season and was swept by the Red Sox, the Cubs sit atop the National League Central standings by a full game and half over the Cardinals and Brewers. In fact, at 14-6, the Cubs boast the second-best record in the bigs behind Arizona (15-5).

With everything in perspective, this season could be a record breaking season for the Cubs in various ways in reaching this milestone and all the World Series talk.

So as every season with the Cubs, the 2008 version is guaranteed to be an entertaining one at the least and hopefully filled with memories that will last a lifetime for those of us who live by the saying, "Next Year is finally here".

Travis David is a Sports Writer for the Greene County Daily World and can be reached at tdavid@gcdailyworld.com or (812) 847-4487, ext. 20.