Let others compute which teams must pay a luxury tax and how much their share is. Let others worry about whether the owners should have worked out this deal months earlier. Let others debate whether the owners or players benefited most.

I don't care about any of that. All I care about is that the players and owners avoided another strike with last week's agreement, guaranteeing baseball will be played without interruption through at least 2007.

	David Eckstein and the energetic Angels are battling for a spot in the postseason.

So prepare to enter a non-economics zone. Stow all thoughts about money, labor or contracts. For the remainder of this column, any mention of luxury taxes, revenue-sharing, Donald Fehr or Rob Manfred is strictly prohibited and violators will be forced to tour with Bud Selig in a road show of "Beatlemania.'' We've had too many months of all that financial nonsense already.

The strike was averted, the baseball season is saved and it's finally time to turn our attention to where it belongs. The field, where the shadows are beginning to creep across the infields and a full, compelling September awaits ...

We will learn whether the amazing Athletics will ever lose again. Oakland was six games under .500 and 10 games behind the Mariners when it traded Jeremy Giambi near the end of May, but has gone 66-25 since then and soared into first place. The Athletics entered Labor Day with an 18-game winning streak, the longest streak in franchise history and the longest in the majors in half a century. They have outscored opponents 124-48 during the streak. How impressive is the streak? The Athletics have moved twice since a major-league team last won as many as 18 games in a row.

We will pour champagne in the Minnesota clubhouse for the first time in 11 years, making sure to save an extra bottle for Torii Hunter. Despite receiving a death sentence last November, the Twins enter Labor Day firmly in first place with a 13-game lead and also are comfortably in remission. Last week's agreement guarantees no team will be eliminated before 2007, when, we can only hope, the Twins will be owned by someone who actually cares about baseball and Hunter still will be in center field.

We will row our bats to McCovey Cove and wait for Barry Bonds to add to his legend. Barry hit his 500th home run last year. He hit his 600th home run last month. He is leading the league in hitting with a .370 average. His on-base percentage is .577. He hasn't fought Jeff Kent in months. Just think how good a season he would be having if he was actually playing on two legs.

We will clutch rally monkeys, wear our rally caps and root for our favorite teams down the stretch.

We will clutch rally monkeys, wear our rally caps and root for our favorite teams down the stretch. Can the Angels catch the Athletics or hold off the Mariners for their first postseason appearance since 1986? Can the Mariners score enough runs to catch either Oakland or Anaheim? Can the Red Sox rush back into the wild-card hunt with a month of games against losing teams? Will the Giants and the Dodgers stage another epic fight for a playoff spot? Can the Cardinals hold off the Astros? Can anyone ever beat the Yankees (on second thought, that question will have to wait until October)?

We will listen to the catcher's glove pop as we argue whether Randy Johnson or Curt Schilling most deserves the Cy Young award. Johnson is 19-5 with a 2.63 ERA. Schilling is 21-5 with a 2.77 ERA and has struck out 10 times as many batters (275) as he's walked (27). No duo has been this good since Lennon and McCartney wrote "Let it Be.''

We will wonder whether the Mets can ever win at home again. They went the entire month of August without winning a game at Shea Stadium and went from the edge of the wild-card race to last place in the NL East. Arizona has won as many games in New York since July 17 as the Mets (four). Can't anyone play this game?

We will tune in to Ernie Harwell for the last time, listening to him paint daily pictures as vivid as Monet's water lilies. This is his 55th and final season broadcasting major-league baseball and I don't know why he is leaving. He is still as delightful to listen to as ever.

We will turn two with Derek Jeter and Alfonso Soriano, warm up in the bullpen with John Smoltz, race to first base with Ichiro, step into the box with Lance Berkman, hustle onto the field with David Eckstein, chase down flyballs with Jim Edmonds and call in sick to sit in the bleachers at Wrigley.

In short, we will enjoy the greatest game there is, knowing it will be with us the rest of the way, and not caring whether we ever get back.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at cuffscaple@hotmail.com.