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CHICAGO -- Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Sammy Sosa has helped Wrigley come alive this season.

For the first time since 1908, Chicago welcomed in a September with baseball teams on both sides of town pushing to make the playoffs. So, of course, on Monday it rained and rained and rained.

But after waiting 34,669 days for a day such as this, what's another 4 hours, 17 minutes?

That's how long about 20,000 rain-soaked fans hung out at Wrigley Field before the Labor Day matinee began. The Cubs and their backers certainly weren't complaining about having to cool their heels for so long, not after a 7-0 victory to open the five-game series against St. Louis.

It took only one of the 29 games scheduled for either Wrigley Field or U.S. Cellular Field in the season's final month to see why these truly could be the most exciting four weeks of baseball in Chicago since, well, practically forever.

Talk about an inferiority complex. The Yankees and Mets played a Subway Series three years ago. The Bay Bridge Series shook Northern California in 1989. But in Chicago, our teams haven't even sniffed the postseason in the same year since Teddy Roosevelt was in the White House.

Some old-timers believe they can recall it happening. Some remember something as recent as 1993 or '72. Others search deeper into their memory banks.

What about '67, when the White Sox were in that great four-team race and the Cubs were entering the era of close calls with Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ron Santo? Perhaps back in the late '30s, when there were winning teams on both sides of town.

All of those seem like reasonable possibilities. But, as you know, reason has little to do with the generational angst that is Chicago baseball.

If asked when our baseball planets aligned in the current fashion, everyone under the age of 95 would have to answer this way: "Sorry, Junior, not in my lifetime.''

The last time both the White Sox and Cubs entered September within five games of first place, the best players in baseball were Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb. Babe Ruth was 10 years old.

No wonder this seems so unfamiliar.

There have been years when both the Cubs and Sox fielded better teams than they do this year. But there was almost always a powerhouse like the Yankees or Cardinals in their way. This year, it seems, they may be looking at a wide-open highway into October.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. For seamheads, this is a September to savor.

Monday kicked off a stretch of 29 games in 28 days in Chicago, including a rare local triple-header on Tuesday. The Cubs and Cardinals played a day-night doubleheader while the White Sox hosted Boston at the park formerly known as Comiskey. And this is just a taste of what lies ahead.

As long as the Cubs and White Sox continue to do their part, there will be a game with playoff implications at Wrigley Field or U.S Cellular Field every day except Sept. 18 and 25, when both parks are dark.

That's OK. We're going to have to catch our breath some time.

Seventeen of these 29 September games in Chicago will involve two teams in the playoff hunt. St. Louis, Boston, Minnesota, Kansas City and the Yankees visit before the final weekend, when the White Sox close with four games on the road against the Royals and the Cubs host Pittsburgh.

This is going to take some getting used to.

Magglio Ordonez has his sights set on the AL Central crown.

The White Sox, who are 28-16 since the All-Star break, didn't even have to get out of bed to take the AL Central lead over Kansas City and Minnesota. The Cubs, meanwhile, not only cut their deficit to 1½ games but also exposed the biggest reason for true belief -- they're trying to catch two teams with extremely fragile starting rotations.

Because they do not have arms like those that belong to Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano and Matt Clement, September could turn into an awfully long grind for the Cardinals and Houston Astros.

It wasn't quite a disaster for the Cardinals that their blue-collar ace, 37-year-old Texan Woody Williams, got himself pounded around like a piñata. Having won six of its last eight games, including two of three against the Cubs last week at Busch Stadium, surely eased the sting for St. Louis.

But after watching Prior dominate for another eight innings, Williams sounded as if he had seen the future of the National League Central -- and it wasn't the Cardinals or Astros, who have split ownership of the division since Tony La Russa arrived in 1996.

"It's big, absolutely huge, what he's done,'' Williams said of the 22-year-old Prior, who has allowed three runs in his last 47 innings. "He's risen to the occasion. Maybe the time on the disabled list actually helped him. He's come back red hot and isn't letting up. I'm sure for Cub fans it's fun to watch.''

White Sox fans need feel no envy. They have Esteban Loaiza, an out-of-nowhere 18-game winner and Cy Young front-runner, along with Bartolo Colon and Mark Buehrle. Even long-time tease Jon Garland appears to be coming into his own.

Teams with strong starting pitching often have staying power, never more so than now. Mayor Daley should send Bud Selig a thank-you note.

Even with all this starting pitching, this could have been just another disappointing season on both sides of town if not for the three-division alignment and expanded playoff format adopted for the 1994 season.

At 71-67, the Cubs have the eighth-best record in the National League. That would have been good for third place in the old NL East, three games behind Philadelphia.

Not bad, considering their patchwork lineup ranks 13th in the league in runs scored, but not nearly as sweet as the current reality. They have two possible avenues into the playoffs, trailing St. Louis by 1½ games and Houston by one in the Central and Florida and Philadelphia by three in the crowded wild-card race.

The White Sox should be especially thankful. At 73-65, they have the fifth-best record in the American League. It would have been good for third in the old AL West, 10 games behind Oakland.

Instead, they go into the final month two games up in a three-team battle with Kansas City and Minnesota. They play 14 of their final 25 games against those teams.

As WXRT's Lin Brehmer reminds us every morning, it really is great to be alive -- seldom more so than as we can flip the calendar to September and find baseball still in the air and hope alive on both sides of town.

Phil Rogers is the national baseball writer for the Chicago Tribune, which has a Web site at www.chicagosports.com.