By Steve Czaban Special to OnMilwaukee.com Published Jul 09, 2008 at 10:35 AM

Welcome to the dead zone in sports. When there are no games to talk about, you talk about everything else.

As somebody paid to talk about sports for some 6 1/2 hours a day, you sometimes wake up and wonder how you'll find enough for a single decent segment.

Then Brett Favre decides he wants to come back. And the Brewers land the reigning Cy Young winner for the pennant race.

Boom! Now you have a summer!

The audience recently chastised me for not talking enough baseball during my visits with Bob and Brian on 102.9 The Hog. Well. Guilty as charged. I like to pace myself on a sport that features merely 162 games per season. I don't have the required three hours per game, per night (or day) to indulge in following a single team so slavishly, not to mention trying to do it for multiple teams.

Note: I just did the math on this. If you watched every inning of every game in a baseball season, that is more than 20 straight days of watching baseball until your eyes bleed!

You could learn how to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese if you invested that much time! Of course, it would be about as useful in social settings, as being able to say you know how many times the Brewers hit into inning-ending double plays.

However, when a huge fish like the Sabathia trade comes along, now THAT is worth talking about. That takes baseball talk to a much more "macro" level, which is relatable to casual fans.

My take on it is pretty simple. Hol-ee sh*t!

For the first time since I've been doing sports with B&B, the Brewers are big time BUYERS this time of year not SELLERS. That's huge by itself, but the fact they beat other teams to the punch in getting CC is worth puffing your chest out about.

Take that, Yankees! How does our ass taste now? (Oops. Shaq reference. Sorry.)

I've told people on my national show that many fans in Wisconsin are more jacked about the Sabathia thing and the chances for the Brewers to make the World Series than they are about Brett Favre and his possible comeback.

They look at me as if I'm nuts. But, they don't understand how good a baseball market Milwaukee really is. They don't know how many beer-soaked softball leagues help keep middle-aged fat dudes in direct touch with the game on a weekly basis by way of dirty cleats and musty smelling Rawlings gloves.

These people also don't understand how bitter and broken the years were between the glory days of Harvey's Wallbangers back in the early '80s until now. From a decrepit old stadium that led to midnight hour drama as to whether the team would actually stay to the ineptitude of the Wendy Selig-Prieb era, so much misery was heaped upon your fan base, it was easy for the team to be an afterthought.

Especially in the era of Favre, which apparently, isn't over.

I don't have enough space in what's left of this column to sort through the angles on this latest bit of drama from Favre. Perhaps another week, when Ted and the Diva get more time to text each other silly.

From the 601 (Mississippi): "hey Ted. RU still think A-Rod at Q?"

From the 920 (Green Bay): "Talk 2ME l8tr. LOL. U comebk? Har!"

The Favre "un-retirement ploy" is just another jerking of Packer fans' chains, something that has gone on for far too long. Maybe he is "mis-remembering" the fact he bawled his way onto his lawn mower this winter in front of massive, fawning coverage.

Was that all just an act Brett? Or, are you clinically depressed?

I said at the time, I thought he needed a good long vacation, and he'd be amazed at the energy and willingness to strap it up for one more run at a Super Bowl. Now, if you take him back, you make a mockery of that day in franchise history.

Is Brett for one more year, going to be better than Aaron Rodgers? Probably. What, then, are the chances of the Pack actually going to the Super Bowl?

No better than 50-50... if that.

To me, it's not worth the coin flip. Having had Favre for 16 years and 275 consecutive starts is certainly not overrated.

Having him for one more year absolutely is. Swallow hard, turn the page, and don't look back. 

Steve Czaban Special to OnMilwaukee.com

Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.

A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.