Because whining about it makes it all better.

I have a somewhat thoughtful post on Ted Haggard and meth-fueled trysts coming sometime soon, but before I write that, you'll have to excuse me, 'cause I've got some complaining to do.

The last five months have been some of the worst in recent Wisconsin sports history. It's one thing when your teams are just plain horrible, so you can quit caring about them. It's quite another when they tease you in every single game by losing at the last second. And I can't remember another year when that's happened to my teams as much as this one.

The Packers were the worst offenders, with an epically heartbreaking season. They had nine games that went down to the final two minutes or overtime, and they lost eight of them, including a streak of four straight games in which they blew a late fourth-quarter lead. They had an eight-game stretch this season in which they were outscored by just six points total, but somehow ended up with a record of 1-7. The NFL stat gurus Football Outsiders did an analysis just before the last week of the season showing that the Packers were the unluckiest NFL team in the last 27 years. I've never followed a season like that, where every time your team got a lead, you were so resigned to the fact that they'd eventually lose it--and they proved you right every single time. It's just not fun to have your pessimism backed up so consistently.

(Badger football, of course, was awful, too, though not quite in as gut-wrenching fashion as the Packers. They lost six times, with three of those losses coming on last-minute scores. But they also won three close ones, too. All in all, they weren't an unlucky team--just a horrible one.)

Then came winter, and with it, Badger basketball. This was supposed to be a down year for the Badgers, but nowhere near this painful. Back while football season was going on and no one was paying attention, they split a couple of close games, winning by a basket against two teams (Iona and Idaho State) that shouldn't have been able to hang with them and losing two tight ones against top teams (Marquette and Texas). Then came the conference season, and specifically the last four games. The Badgers lost two straight in overtime, then two more in the last minute to bring their losing streak to five, their longest in more than a decade. This quite thoughtful Badger fan's response after the most recent of those losses sums up my thoughts on Tuesday perfectly.

Oh, and Nebraska basketball? They've led big-time programs throughout most of their last three games, only to fall short in the final two minutes. Tom Osborne had to give them a pep talk this week to tell them, basically, that things can't possibly get any worse.

But enough of my whining. At least we still have Husker football, right? Those lucky dogs.

I wonder what this would have looked like in graph form...

A brief summary of my weekend in sports (all times approximate, and by approximate, I mean nudged around for maximum dramatic effect):

Saturday:
3 p.m.: Mets win, forcing the Brewers to win in order to maintain their one-game wild card lead.

5:30 p.m.: Brewers lose. They've just blown their wild card lead with one game to go.

6:15 p.m.: Badgers lose. They've just blown a 19-0 second-half lead against possibly the worst Michigan team in decades.

10:45 p.m.: Huskers lose. They've just been beaten at home in the first meaningful game in the Bo Pelini era.

Sunday:
2 p.m.: Aaron Rodgers, the Packers' quarterback, gets injured during a game against the Buccaneers. The quarterback the Packers turned Brett Favre down for has just gone down.

2:30 p.m.: Aaron Rodgers returns. And throws his third interception of the day.

2:45 p.m.: Mets tie their game, 2-2. If they win, the Brewers have to win in order to avoid missing the playoffs in the biggest collapse in franchise history.

2:50 p.m.: The Brewers are losing, 1-0, in the seventh inning after being one-hit by a bunch of relievers through six. They have the bases loaded with Corey Hart up. He strikes out.

2:51 p.m.: Packers lose.


At this point, we have what could be the worst sports weekend of my life. Badgers, Huskers and Packers lose, and the Brewers are about to blow the best chance they'll have at the playoffs for years. But all is not lost: If the Brewers can clinch the playoffs, I'll consider the weekend salvaged. This is what I tell Dana, anyway. She seems skeptical.


2:52 p.m.: Craig Counsell (AKA 12-year-old looking, goofy-stance-man) draws a game-tying RBI walk for the Brewers. (This is where the links get fun.)

3:30 p.m.: The Mets fall behind, 4-2, in the eighth inning on back-to-back home runs.

3:35 p.m.: Ryan Braun hits a two-run home run to put the Brewers in the lead, 3-1.

3:45 p.m.: Brewers win.

4:00 p.m.: Mets lose. Brewers make the playoffs for the first time since Dad used to swear at Brewers games. (Yes, it's tough for me to believe, too.)

I call it a pretty good weekend.

I hate to post yet another sports post, but Dana and I went to the Husker game, and I'll have some thoughts on that up tomorrow.

"So what do you think about the whole Brett Favre thing?"

People who have asked me this question in the last two weeks:

--My co-workers
--My ex-co-workers
--My pastor's wife
--My father-in-law
--My uncle-in-law
--My dog-in-law

The last time I was being asked the same question by so many people, I was a senior in high school and was telling everyone that "Wheaton is a Christian liberal arts school in the suburbs of Chicago ... no, it's not affiliated with a specific denomination ... yeah, my dad went there, and I really thought it was the best Christian education I could get."

So, since you're probably asking right now, "So what DO you think about the whole Brett Favre thing," here's my short answer:

Brett Favre needs to find a hobby. Or leave the country. Or, better yet, take up around-the-world hot-air ballooning. There's a hobby that would take him out of the country for a long, long time.

The point is, unretiring was a bad idea. Strike that--unretiring now was a bad idea. Had Favre unretired back this spring when the Packers hadn't planned its entire offseason strategy around someone else, that would've been fine. (Actually, he almost did that, and the Packers told him they'd take him back, but then he re-retired at the last minute.)

But no, he decided to un-retire less than a month before training camp, and he decided to do it in the most drama queeny fashion imaginable. Here's why the Packers aren't taking him back as starter, and I totally understand it.

Basically, the standards for Favre had been in a different universe from the rest of the team, and Favre was asking for more of the same. So the Pack's front office decided whether their ultimate loyalty was to Favre or to the rest of the team. And at some point, Packers fans have to make the same choice. It's easy to pick the face of the franchise for the past 16 years. But it makes a lot more sense to choose the franchise itself.