Chicago ? The new year opens up before us, full of promise, and even though it might turn out like all the other new years, full of disappointment and excess body hair, we push on, knowing that if the Red Sox can win a World Series, then it is entirely possible for us to be bequeathed $100 million by a crazy uncle who had insisted on being referred to as “Don Corleone” and who, unbeknownst to his relatives, had invested wisely in pork-belly futures.

But it probably will turn out like the other years.

A lot of people found hope in Boston’s accomplishment in 2004, in the way the Red Sox boldly came back from three games down to the Yankees in the AL Championship Series and in the way they scoffed at the Curse of the Bambino and dismissed the Cardinals. If Boston could win, the thinking went, then anything was possible — peace, ceaseless blue skies and a complete media blackout of “Apprentice” winner Bill Rancic.

But there are those of us who see the situation differently. You can’t miss us. We’re the people wearing rain slickers on a sunny day.

This is the way we look at it: So much energy had to go into nudging the Red Sox past 86 years of bad history that the cosmic forces responsible for it are absolutely spent. They need their personal time. It’s written in their contracts: The gods must be lazy.

We are, of course, talking about the Cubs, though in a roundabout way so as not to offend anyone two days into the new year. The Cubs Convention convenes later this month, which, as all longtime Cubs observers know, is the pinnacle of the year and a veritable Bacchanalia of naked ambition. Everything after the convention is downhill.

It’s hard to believe that, with the Red Sox stating their intentions to the world in 2004 (“Mr. Steinbrenner, tear down this wall!”), the Cubs could top it by winning a World Series in 2005. In fact, it’s impossible to believe.

I know what many of you are thinking: If A happened, then why can’t B follow? Answer: Because B hasn’t won a World Series since 1908 and hasn’t played in one since 1945! Answer further explained: These are the Cubs!

The biggest story of 2004 will not be followed by a Cubs title. It’s asking too much. No, it’s more than that. It’s like something out of a bad movie. It’s something out of “Alexander,” the epic film in which Colin Farrell plays infielder Manny Alexander, Sammy Sosa’s onetime teammate and caddie.

A Cubs championship would be ridiculous after the Red Sox’s impossible-to-believe story came true. Life doesn’t work that way. Life limbers up by kicking the Cubs in the shins.

So a bold prediction for 2005:

The White Sox will win the World Series. This is the only way life could be any worse for the Cubs. And that is where you always go with this franchise. You go to wherever the maximum pain is. Five outs away from the World Series in 2003? Yes, that does hurt. The Red Sox, the Cubs’ brothers in futility, winning the Series in 2004?

When the Red Sox stunned the Yankees in the ALCS, I wrote a column about it, with the Cubs’ misery threading its way through the piece. Didn’t mention the White Sox and their misery once. And heard about it from miserable Sox fans.

Fair’s fair, and White Sox fans will be able to rub a World Series title in the faces of Cubs fans. You rightly ask: How, with that lineup and that budget, could the Sox win the World Series? I have no idea. I just know that, in the grand scheme of things, it would make perfect sense.