CHICAGO _ The music stopped during the Cubs' wild postgame clinching party late Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, and the players asked for some quiet.
Dante the DJ, who had been brought into the clubhouse with his turntable to bring the house down, stopped spinning the tunes for a second and everyone stood at attention, a plastic cup full of Jack Daniels in most of their hands.
Soaked in champagne with his official National League Central winner T-shirt pulled over a blue collared shirt, Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts took over and addressed the players.
"All I did was buy some time with the fans," Ricketts told them. "And the fact is, we used that time for Theo and Jed to go out and build the best team in all of baseball."
President Theo Epstein, general manager Jed Hoyer and the players and staff burst into cheers. The plastic cups were emptied and Dante the DJ took his cue, cranking up the song "All the Way Up" by Fat Joe and Remy Ma as everyone began to dance and shout.
"Nothing can stop me, I'm all the way up. All the way up. I'm all the way up. ..."
Nothing could stop this team from steam-rolling its way to the Central Division title, clinching with more than two weeks left in the season and rolling toward a 100-plus victory season like they were bobsledding down Cricket Hill.
They're not all the way up just yet, but when October begins, we'll find out if they can get where no Cubs team has gone since 1908.
But now the party was rolling, and if there ever was a team that knew how to party, this was it. If Anthony Rizzo was correct, it would go on for the rest of the night, with no time out for a seventh-inning stretch.
This was a day for the Cubs to let their freak flags fly, hours after backing into the division title when the Cardinals lost to the Giants late Thursday night in San Francisco. There was no party then because the players all had separated.
David Ross said he went home on a bike-cab and stopped into a bar on Sheffield Avenue for a beer after the clinching became official. The bartender recognized him and bought him a shot of Jameson.
"'Rizz' told me it was a Chicago tradition," Ross said.
Manager Joe Maddon, the ringmaster of this circus, started his B-team lineup Friday against the Brewers, letting his regulars sit back and enjoy. Then he watched them come back to tie the game with a two-run ninth inning, and win it on Miguel Montero's home run in the 10th.
A perfect ending to a perfect afternoon in a town patiently waiting for that moment they have been dreaming of forever.
Cubs President Theo Epstein spent the day watching the game in the left field bleachers with general manager Jed Hoyer and several other front office honchos, wearing a fake mustache his assistant bought for him and a "Try Not to Suck" T-shirt, pretending he was incognito.
Epstein said it was the first time he had sat in the bleachers since 1997, when he worked in the Padres front office, and that Cubs' fans didn't recognize him until the fourth or fifth inning.
"It's great out there," Epstein said. "I'm quitting. It's fun, such a blast out there."
Epstein said he would make it a tradition to sit in the bleachers every time the Cubs win the division, and if their youngsters grow at their current rate, that should happen quite frequently.
The Cubs knew all along this was going to be a special season, as the "Embrace the Target" mantra they adopted last spring indicated. But talent can go by the wayside if the players don't get along as we have seen on many Cubs teams in the past.
This team bonded from the opening of spring training, thanks in part to the wacky sideshows Maddon and strength coach Tim Buss created that got them through the same, repetitive drills that are part of every camp.
Players who played a bit part in the 2015 surge suddenly stepped into the limelight. Starter Kyle Hendricks made the biggest jump with Addison Russell and Javier Baez following close behind.
"We come to the field every day and it's like you're with all your best friends," Hendricks said.
This was the first of what the Cubs hope are a series of clinching celebrations, with each one expected to top the last. That's a tall order, especially when you bring in your own DJ for the first one.
"There are only four, so that's not a lot if you think about it," Hendricks said, alluding to three more potential postseason clinching parties. "It's a long year, so why not blow it out for all of them?"
There are bigger goals for this team, of course, and the Cubs are well aware their fans no longer will be satisfied with winning division titles if they don't get to the World Series soon.
How soon is now?
"You want to be there, you want the parades," Rizzo said. "And this is the first step."
