I want to believe

It's funny how my passions change in sports. When the Mets ruled New York baseball, they were my favorite sports franchise. I was born in 1962 and really became aware of life around 1969, so the Mets were the sports team of my youth. My youth lasted until 1992.

It was in 1992 that Brett Favre arrived in Green Bay and it was in 1992 that I began to realize that it was no longer 1986. The Mets began to fall by the wayside, and quickly became weak sisters to the Yankees. Suddenly New York was a Yankee town. Yankee fans came out of the woodwork in droves, as if they'd been in hiding for the first 30 yers of my life. Some of them even spoke English. The numbers were astonishing. My loyalty to my beloved Mets never wavered. I am a Mets fan and damn proud of it, but by 1994 my absolute favorite all time professional sports team was the Green Bay Packers. That has not changed.

Yesterday the Packers were dominated by a world class football team, the New England Patriots. The domination was so complete that even the usually rose colored Milwaukee press hit the proverbial panic button. One writer wrote "Punter B.J. Sander was the best player for the Packers. Enough said." Another writer pined "If you were looking for one bright spot in the evening, there wasn't any." I planned to watch the game today at 4:00 on the NFL Network but decided against it. I figure there's no need to be a miserable fuck and ruin my beautiful wife's weekend too. Besides, I can think of better things for us to do. The Packers need to be ready ro play on September 11th in Detroit, and realistically IF they play the Patriots again it would be a minor miracle, because the only way that happens is if they make the Super Bowl. OK, a major miracle.

While the Packers were getting their asses whooped, Steve Trachsel was pitching 8 innings of shutout ball for the Mets. This was his first start of the season, a season interrupted by a major surgery that could have kept him out for the season. Trachsel pitched 8 and Braden Looper closed out the 9th and suddenly the Mets, who have not been able to win a road game to save themselves are 5-0 on the this road trip. They're also 8 games over .500, 4 games out of first, and 1.5 games off the wild card lead.

And suddenly just like that, I'm interested in baseball again.