For better or for worse, sports fans will acknowledge the ups and downs of following your favorite team. The highs of winning are mitigated by the lows of losing. It is, for some reason, an emotional investment in game that, in reality, means nothing except to those literally invested in the team.

To me, the happiness -- and the sadness -- of sports are most manifested in baseball. And particularly in being a Brewers fan.

It's easy to be happy when you're a Yankees fan. Through a zillion dollar payroll, it's expected that your team will accomplish great things. And when it doesn't, it simply buys the best talent out there (read: CC Sabathia) and taunts the small-market teams that couldn't afford it.

But being a Brewers fan is more than the sadness of Trevor Hoffmann's blown save, or getting routed by the Cubs in our own ballpark. There's something deflating about giving your heart and soul to this franchise -- even though I believe the front office has only the best of intentions and is really a wonderful corporate citizen.

These thoughts have been swirling in my head for about a week, since OnMilwaukee.com podcaster Phil Cianciola asked me to come on his show and defend my love for the Brewers. I realized afterward that I had never spent 30 minutes enunciating my reasons, neither out loud nor to myself. I walked out of his studio surprisingly melancholy.

On the field, it's easy to pinpoint moments of sadness that have made me wonder why let Brewers baseball affect me so. I remember when the Brewers traded Gorman Thomas. I remember when Sal Bando let Paul Molitor leave for Toronto. I remember when Dean Taylor shipped Jeff Cirillo to Colorado. Those are baseball decisions, that regardless of what uninformed fans like myself felt at the time, are made by people whose job it is to build championships and are usually far more qualified than me to make.

But I also remember off-the-field things that have hurt. Like when I realized that my shrine to baseball, County Stadium, would need to be torn down if it meant the Brewers would stay in Milwaukee. I attended rallies, I wrote letters and personally lobbied for Miller Park, when in reality, my vision of summer was simply sitting in the lower grandstands at that decrepit old stadium watching sub-par baseball unfold before my still optimistic young adult eyes.

And I cried at that final game at County Stadium, too. I couldn't bring myself to watching it be demolished, either, and driving by, I always turned my head. Yet, I was at Miller Park when it opened, melancholy but supportive.

Yesterday, I learned that Bob Uecker will undergo heart surgery on Friday, and optimistically will miss 10-12 weeks of action. My job allows me to straddle the line between fan and journalist, so I've heard plenty of inside rumblings about Uecke's ongoing health problems, but I'm legitimately saddened for him, and I know that as a private person, he doesn't enjoy airing his own laundry.

That I care so much is clearly ironic, since while I've met the man several times, my one-way friendship only exists because I've been listening to him call baseball games for my whole life. In fact, in person, Uecke has been downright chilly toward me (and who blames him?) other than a very gracious interview in 2002, but on the radio, he's a genial grandfather, talking about my favorite topic, basically every day for seven months. I asked myself yesterday, in fact, if I would be so moved if I found out that any other septuagenarian I've met a few times was heading for serious heart surgery. The answer, obviously, callously, was no.

I guess the reasons that I love baseball so much are the reasons I allow it to make me occasionally so sad. The traditions, the personalities, the bucolic seasonality, the history -- all that magical stuff that can elicit pure happiness.

But when those elements go south, it's like saying farewell to a dear friend. Watching a genuinely humble but slightly uncomfortable Bob Uecker talk about this stuff last night brought it all home.

I hope and pray that Bob will get well soon, as his health is more important than my enjoyment of his livelihood. But I can't wait to hear him on the radio again, either. When times like this leave me really bummed out, I know he'll be the first to cheer me up.