AREA'S CHICAGOANS SEE DREAM SEASON CONTINUE.

Byline: Lee Condon and David R. Baker Daily News Staff Writers

On Monday night, the Chicago Cubs made the playoffs for the first time since 1989, but for longtime fan Christopher Durbin it marked the beginning of a whole new level of anxiety.

``The Cubs are like a car wreck. I don't want to look, but I can't help it,'' said Durbin, a 36-year-old art director at NBC in Burbank.

After so many years of letdowns, Durbin is hopeful that his team will go all the way in 1998. But deep down, he knows the truth.

``Ultimately there is going to be a tragedy,'' Durbin said.

But, at least for now, it's ``Holy Cow!'' as the late Cubs announcer Harry Caray loved to shout.

Durbin, who grew up in the Rogers Park section of Chicago, was one of about 40 die-hard Cubs fans who showed up at the Tin Horn Flats Bar & Grill in Burbank, a local hangout where Chicago natives go to cheer on their local teams.

``Almost everyone here is a displaced Chicagoan or a closeted Chicago fan who can come here without getting hassled,'' said Bill Ahern, 36-year-old North Hollywood resident who grew up in the Chicago suburb of Hanover Park.

The Chicago Cubs are, of course, the biggest losers in baseball, not having won a World Series since 1908 and not having played in the World Series since 1945. Fans say it's all because of the Billy Goat Curse, which a bar owner placed on the team after security at Wrigley Field refused to let his goat in for the game.

Mik Scriba, a 50-year-old actor who lives in Sherman Oaks, grew up in the Wrigleyville section of Chicago, which is basically made up of the five blocks that surround Wrigley Field.

``I used to go to 60 home games a year,'' Scriba said.

Giving up on the Cubs would be sacrilegious.

``It would be like switching to new parents. It's psychologically impossible,'' Scriba said.

While fans of other teams already are convinced that their favorites will win the World Series, the Cubs fans were very conservative in their predictions.

``I'm not thinking this is the year,'' Scriba said. ``All we want to do is get into the postseason.''

But Ahern already has bought into the fantasy that the Cubs are going to win the World Series this year.

``You don't have to always win to enjoy the game. You just have to believe in the team, and this is the year,'' Ahern said.

Cubs fanatics, of course, are used to the abuse. They've heard the derision from fans of luckier teams, the accusation that only people addicted to pain could love such a club.

The reputation, they say, is all wrong.

``We're not masochists - we're just filled with hope,'' said veteran stand-up comedian Tom Dreesen, whose routines often reflect the heartbreak of following the Cubs.

The 52-year-old Sherman Oaks resident has been rooting for the team since growing up on Chicago's South Side - serious White Sox territory, he notes. Following the luckless Cubs, he said, gives fans a reason to live, to see another year in the hope that, this time, the team might just make it to the World Series. Lord knows how many suicides the Cubs might have prevented this way.

``I fear that on the morning after they finally win the World Series, there will be 50,000 people jumping out of buildings,'' Dreesen said.

As it has with other lifelong fans, this year's amazing, Sammy Sosa-driven season has left Dreesen in a state of bliss. Just as Babe Ruth helped save baseball after the 1919 Black Sox scandal, Dreesen said the gracious sportsmanship of Sosa and Mark McGwire has restored luster to a sport tarnished by the 1994 players strike, which made players and club owners seem greedy in the eyes of many fans.

``These guys have done the same thing as Ruth,'' Dreesen said. ``These guys have brought baseball back.''

Even with the Cubs leading 5-0 Monday night in the bottom of the eighth inning, Durbin couldn't relax.

Sure enough, in the ninth inning San Francisco came back, scoring three runs and turning the last moments of the game into a nail-biter for the crowd at the bar.

``To the Cubs fan, no lead is safe,'' Durbin said. ``No way am I comfortable, no way.''

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Photo

Photo: (1--Color) Cubs fans Beth, left, and Bill Ahern give all for their team while watching from a Burbank bar.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News