The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat

As one of those rare Yankee/Packer fan hybrids -- what can I say, I like teams that won a lot before I was born -- it was a mixed night for me.

The Yankees won, of course, to stave off elimination and play at least one more game in 2007. That was good.

The Packers, of course, blew a 10-point lead to lose to the hated Bears to ruin their perfect season.

I know a guy from Philadelphia, so naturally he is both a Phillies fan and an Eagles fan. Last Monday, I asked him if he was up (from the Phillies making the post-season) or down (from the Eagles losing to the Giants).

He thought about it for a little bit, then started trying to rationalize that he was up, but then he just sighed. "Goddamn it! Couldn't they have given me just one day to enjoy the moment?!"

I know a little better now where he was coming from, but I'm up, I'm up. If you told me in July that the Packers would be 4-1 and the Yankees would be in the post-season, I'd be a happy camper.

The Packers lost the type of game they'd been winning the first four games of the season. All the lucky breaks they got to get to 4-0 were here tonight -- for the Bears. Charles Woodson fumbles a punt and it bounces right into the hands of the punter, of all people, and he grabs it just before he slides out of bounds. Brett Favre does some kind of crazy no-look pass and throws it right into the arms of Brian Urlacher. The Bears go up on a touchdown pass that is caught out of bounds, but the officials rule it a push-out and, for god knows why, that's not a reviewable play. And speaking of reviewable plays, Mike McCarthy throws the red flag to challenge a spot, wins the challenge... or not. The announcers never seemed to figure this out. All I know is the officials picked up the ball and moved it back, which sounds like you won the challenge, right? But they didn't move it back far enough for it not to be a first down, so apparently he lost the challenge. In other words, yes, we made a mistake, but no, we didn't.

And then on top of the five turnovers, all those penalties -- 93 yards in penalties, and at killer times too. The Packers racked up 150 more yards of offense, but all for naught.

But at the end of the game, if Donald Driver jumps an inch higher, it's all tied up.

Yeah, so we could be 5-0, but then we could have just as easily lost the Eagles game or even the Giants game, and be 2-3. We're a good but not great team -- a better team than the Bears, but not tonight. Next week we're home against a 3-1 Redskins team that just beat the holy hell out of the Lions. We'll see which was the fluke, the first four or the last one.

As for the Yankees, win tomorrow and send the series back to Cleveland -- where the forecast for Wednesday night is high 50s and rain, not exactly good conditions for midges. Win tomorrow and try again with Chien-Ming Wang against C.C. Sabathia. Hopefully Wang will figure out whatever was wrong with him in Game 1, and hopefully the Yankee batters can figure out why they couldn't put away Sabathia, a guy we had on the ropes more than Rocky Balboa against Clubber Lang.



But unfortunately it was Rocky/Clubber II. Just like Clubber we kept going for the big knock-out punch but swinging and missing.

Before we can start thinking about Wednesday, we have to win tomorrow, and even with Paul Byrd pitching, it won't be easy. We won't have Phil Hughes (3.2 innings, 63 pitches) or Joba Chamberlain (2.0 innings, 38 pitches), which means the bullpen is going to be short-handed tomorrow night if Mike Mussina can't get us through the 6th inning.

Yes, you could say we needed to win tonight to get to tomorrow, but what the fuck, Joe Torre? You had a 5-run lead, why did you send Joba back out there to pitch the 8th? You don't think that was a good time to play sports psychologist with Kyle Farnsworth? Maybe let Russ Ohlendorf get back on the horse after getting slapped around in Game 1? Oh, no, let's burn up Joba. More great work from one of the winningest managers in MLB history.

Of course, Joe has a lot more confidence in Moose than I do, because Joe just loves his veterans. Johnny Damon after the game tonight was asked if it mattered that Torre's job was supposedly on the line tonight and he said something along the lines of, "We'll do anything for Joe." Hey, how about win some games in May and June, Johnny? Those games counted too, you know.

Well, obviously there's only one thing for Big Stein to do before tomorrow's game: Threaten to fire Joe again. Or, better yet, have a sniper in the owner's box with orders to shoot Torre in the head if the Yankees lose. Obviously it's the only way to motivate these guys. Win the game, or your beloved manager dies.

Can't you just picture Joe sitting there with the red dot of a laser sight bouncing over his forehead? Actually, he'd probably have his usual hang-dog look, staring at the ground, mumbling to himself and pounding down the green tea.

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