I’m a big fan of the NCIS series that is on CBS and USA. The lead character is a former marine played by Mark Harmon. His name is Gibbs and he is the all-American badass with a legendary intuition. NCIS spun off of JAG, so at the end of the JAG series Gibbs is going after the lead man there, Commander, Rab. During interrogation Rab asks Gibbs if he can tell a man is lying just by looking in his eyes, to which Gibbs calmly and cooly asserts that he can. A pretty epic stare down ensues and the rest is TV history.

The point of that story is this, sometimes you can tell what is going on in a man just by looking at his eyes, and while I don’t usually subscribe to that junk in the sports realm it can be true in the rarest of cases.

Including the case of Lou Piniella.

It’s no secret that the Cubs are built to win now. They have no farm system left after multiple acquisitions, they don’t have the contracts nor the players to trade to get that farm system, and really, they don’t want to.

They want to win right now, this year, because of that whole 101 year curse thing.

It led to the perplexing deal given to Alfonso Soriano, the trades for Rich Harden, Derrek Lee, Kevin Gregg, the signings of Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster and the ever famous signing of Milton Bradley.

Everything from the past, including the ghosts of yesteryear and those of 2003/2004 are coming to a head this year. Because you see, fellow Cub fans, this is the last real year the Cubs have a legitimate shot at winning the whole damn thing for a very long time.

There is no next year for this team. Every starter from this year on offense will be over 30, save one Geovany Soto, and the window is shutting as soon as the Cubs finish this season. The aging pitching staff coupled with an old lineup will not be around for an extended run, and Soriano will only worsen in left with age.

And Piniella knows it. It’s in the way that he’s acted, the books he’s read over the long winter, the press conferences, it’s in him. He knows that this is the last shot for an old Cubs team that will not be getting any younger if the Cubs fail to win a World Series Crown.

That’s the ultimate goal, the only goal, and to sound perfectly cheesy and meatballish, it’s in Lou’s eyes, those sad droopy eyes that seem to lose some glimmer with every loss, with every Soriano strikeout, with every home run Kevin Gregg allows, with every injury, with every bullpen walk, with every Milton Bradley incedent, it’s growing fainter and fainter.

The old man is tired of this garbage, and everyone knows it. This is the last dance.