A season full of joy and discovery. A season of loss. A season of dreaming and arguing, disappointment and validation.

A season that is not over yet.

For the first time since 2018, the Cubs will play a playoff game in front of fans.

For the first time since 2017, they will try to win a playoff game and even a playoff series.

They will do it with Ryne Sandberg in their hearts and, quite possibly, Anthony Rizzo in the bleachers.

They will do it with Pete Crow-Armstrong in center field and Cade Horton on the mound, and they will do it with the idea of a team on the rise starting another multi-season run that involves a parade at some point.

This isn't a "World Series or bust" October. The Cubs (88-64) are somewhere above "happy to be here" and below "team of destiny."

It was fitting they celebrated their playoff clinch in Pittsburgh, where the last run began with a thrilling wild-card game against the Pirates. No one begrudged them soaking the visiting clubhouse with booze and tears of joy.

Since 2018, very few Chicago teams have even made the playoffs, and only the 2021 WNBA champion Chicago Sky have won a playoff series. (The Cubs made it to the postseason in that truncated 2020 season, but even in these divided times, we can all agree that no one cared.)

This Cubs team is good but not great. The Cubs are, in all likelihood, going to finish behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central, despite poaching their manager two years ago for a king's ransom.

For a bit there, they did look great, back when Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker were competitors with Shohei Ohtani for the NL MVP award. Now, Cubs fans are wondering whether Tucker (who missed the celebration to work on his aching calf in Florida) will play in the postseason and if Crow-Armstrong can get hot and recapture that "PCA" magic.

Just making the playoffs should never be an annual goal for a team like the Cubs, which should have the money and resources to be a perennial contender. But in reality, it's been a long time since they've been relevant in October, so this is a moment to enjoy for the team and its fans.

The Cubs lead the San Diego Padres by 5 1/2 games for the right to host a best-of-three wild-card series. So Wrigley Field will likely be rockin' in October once again. Maybe only for two or three games, but rockin' nonetheless.

And, of course, that extra income is just one more reason to put pressure on chairman Tom Ricketts to open his velcro wallet for a bigger free-agent winter, looming 2026 lockout be damned.

How long will the Cubs last in the playoffs? It's impossible to know, though there are usually clues. Pitching health, recent results.

If Tucker is healthy and hitting, the Cubs could do almost anything.

Whoever wins the first series will take on either Milwaukee or Philadelphia in the NLDS. And I don't hate Chicago's odds in a five-game series against the Brewers. Despite some ugly losses there in the middle, the Cubs have shown they can beat that team. I don't feel the same about Philadelphia, led by former Chicago cult hero Kyle Schwarber. (Chicago went 7-6 against Milwaukee and 2-4 against the Phillies.)

As an aesthete, I would love to see Schwarber swat an October homer at Wrigley Field again, regardless of the team he's representing. There are players made for the moment, and he is certainly one of them. He set the franchise record for postseason home runs in his rookie season and is now tied with three other peers with six. The Cubs, of course, are still not a team known for individual playoff records. Their most tenured player, outfielder Ian Happ, has somehow never played in a postseason victory. (Thanks to my friend Andy Dolan for that nugget.)

That reminds me of the anecdote about Adam Dunn waiting his whole career to make the playoffs, only to sit on the bench in a wild-card loss.

That is why just getting here is worth some appreciation, especially after a season in which over-the-moon praise and invectives jostled for space in print and on the airwaves.

There was the disappointment in Ricketts for missing out on Alex Bregman in spring training and then there was joy in Wrigleyville over the team's fast start, led by the star turn by Crow-Armstrong and the debut of Tucker. There was the Al Capone's vault trade deadline -- all that anticipation for bupkis -- and the ensuing lull, which, unfortunately for the Cubs, happened at the same time the Brewers caught fire.

The Cubs looked primed to win the division for the first time since 2017 -- a god-awful drought for a big-market team in a small-market division -- but once again, they were flummoxed by their northern neighbors.

Tucker cooled off, and now he's hurt again, putting his playoff availability in jeopardy. He missed the celebration as he departed for Tampa to meet with his personal trainers to figure out why his calf strain isn't getting better. I'm not counting on him for October. But I'm not counting him out or the Cubs either.

Much is expected of the Cubs and the Ricketts family, and for good reason. We were told that once the family business got its own TV network, videoboards, boutique hotel, beer garden and sportsbook, the money would flow to the baseball operations department. It's not that the Cubs are impoverished, but their payroll is not making the Dodgers sweat.

Then again, have you seen how the Dodgers have been playing lately? They're fighting for a division title. But they'll always be relevant in the regular season, postseason and offseason.

As for the Cubs, once this October run ends, the questions about their future will begin in earnest.,

I'm sure that, short of a World Series run, the offseason is going to be a stress test for Cubs fans' sanity. Will Ricketts pay up for Tucker? Should he? How else can Hoyer, who agreed to a contract extension before the deadline, improve this team? He has a pretty crowded position group, so can he make the right moves to set the team up for the future?

Those questions will be answered in due time.

For now, the Cubs are relevant in the present. And maybe that's not all we've been asking for, but it's something.

It's been a long year for the Cubs and they deserve to celebrate the present