The words are on the tip of my tongue.

I don't want to say them. Swallowing battery acid would be more palatable.

Obviously, no one wants to hear them. Listening to a voice say, "I'm Al Davis and I want you to work for me," might be worse, but that's it.

So brace yourselves. Here they are:

Wait 'till next year.

It's the battle cry that originated with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It has to be the worst sentence in sports. If you speak it, or hear it, your favorite team's season is over, and the year probably ended in utterly painful fashion.

Brooklyn fans made that four-word sentence famous, until the Dodgers finally won a World Series in 1955. When Walter O'Malley moved the franchise, the faithful moved into the four-letter word lexion any time O'Malley's name came up.

Now, baseball fans in the Midwest are hearing, or thinking about next year. The Twins are done. The White Sox, dismissed. The Brewers, beaten. And the Cubs? My Lord, the Cubs. The 2008 edition will be known as the Hindenburg of Wrigley Field after it crashed and burned against none other than the Dodgers. Oh, the humanity indeed.

Wait 'till next year. The 2008 Cubs and the diehards will follow a flight path established by their predecessors in 1969, 1984, 1989, 2003 and so on. They will be another verse in the century-long Cubbie blues.

But it doesn't have to be that way. As someone who's not a Cub fan, it seems to me that dwelling on the past is unpleasant, perhaps as dangerous as sharing a washroom with Adam Jones. There's a different direction out there, a path that offers a hint of what might happen, if the men of Wrigley can walk the walk.

So, while the Cubs are waiting 'till next year, I offer you fans …

The Philadelphia Phillies.

The Philadelphia Phillies?

No, not the 2008 Phillies, who are in the NLCS opposite the Dodgers. Fade back 30 years to the 1970s, the era of disco, leisure suits, Billy Martin getting fired once a week and Reggie Jackson's candy bar. Those Phillies.

So get the KC and the Sunshine Band records out. Let's go to the '70s.

After years of misery, a blown pennant in 1964 and an awful stretch in the baseball dungeon, Philadelphia suddenly assembled a very good baseball team. The Phillies won 100 games in 1976. They did it again in 1977. They won their third consecutive National League East title in 1978.

And the Phillies failed completely in post-season play.

Cincinnati, at the very end of the Big Red Machine's run, swept Philly in 1976.

Wait 'till next year? During the 1977 NLCS, the Phillies held a 5-3 lead over the Dodgers with two out and nobody on in the top of the ninth in Game 3. Three runs, four hits and two Philadelphia errors later, Los Angeles held a lead, won the game and buried the Phils the next day to reach the World Series.

Wait 'till next year? In 1978, L.A. beat Philadelphia again in four games. This time, the Dodgers ended the NLCS in the bottom of the 10th, scoring the decisive run on a walk, an outfield error and one lousy hit.

Bartman was nowhere to be seen.

Wait 'till next year? Actually, the Phillies waited until 1980. Then they beat Kansas City to win the first and only World Series in franchise history.

So there are lessons here for Cub fans.

No matter how miserable you may feel now, there still is hope, especially if management can keep the core of the team together.

That's what happened with the Phillies of yesteryear. Steve Carlton, the Hall of Famer, was there through the agony and the ecstasy. Mike Schmidt, another Cooperstown man of the future, supplied power and defense at third base. Larry Bowa, then 34 years old, was fire and ice at shortstop.

The parallels aren't perfect, of course. Carlos Zambrano is not in Carlton's class, but he is a Cy Young caliber pitcher. Aramis Ramirez will not be considered among the best third basemen of all time like Schmidt. Yet Ramirez is productive, talented and still relatively young at 30.

Still, you could argue the Cubs of today are more talented than the Phillies of the late 1970s and 1980. Geovany Soto is a 25-year-old catcher with more pop in his bat than 32-year-old Bob Boone had. Derrek Lee offers more versatility than an aging (39) Pete Rose did at first base.

So it can be done. A team that can't succeed can try again. And again. And again. It could happen to the Cubs.

Wait 'till next year?

It could be very sweet indeed.

Contact Jim Sullivan at (319) 291-1434 or jim.sullivan@wcfcourier.com