It was a slow day at the office Thursday. Right before the holiday, the phones were quiet and half the staff had started the long weekend early. The boss and I were the only ones left at 5:30, and even then ready to jump the gun on closing shop. Jim’s a die-hard Brewer fan, and a good one at that. As any good fan would, he had Milwaukee’s finale against the Diamondbacks on his radio. With nothing better to do, he came in to “kindly” inform me that despite facing Brandon Webb, the Brewers led 5-0 in the 9th. Yes, Arizona was putting a few men on base, but not to worry- Salomon Torres was always available to close and Gagne was unsuccessful at ruining everything after pitching a clean eighth.

With just as much nothing to do, I found an excuse to stroll into his office as the bases were loaded with no outs and a D-Back counter-move put a lefty specialist against Chad Tracy. Our hypothetical discussion on whether this would qualify as a save situation was interrupted by a three-run double. Suddenly, Jim was not in such a good mood. And nothing was peeling my ears from this train wreck.

Torres came in, and by now this was definitely a save situation. Then came a single to right- Tracy held at third despite Jim’s insistence that he run himself into an out. I kindly explained the Arizona Third Base Coach’s mentality- Tracy didn’t matter; the guy on first did. The fun continued with a double. By this point, the blood had drained from Jim’s face, he had tensed up and grew increasingly impatient waiting for MLB.com’s Gameday to catch up with the radio. This had now turned into an observational experiment- marveling at the sudden increase in Jim’s blood pressure… and the poise Bob Uecker kept throught it all. I’d ask if you could imagine Ron Santo covering a disaster like this, but we’ve all heard it before and it ain’t pretty.

Conor Jackson finished it off with a 2-run single and the D-Backs came back from a 5-0 deficit without recording a single out in the ninth. Jim heard it on the radio just as I did, waited for Gameday to confirm that it wasn’t just a bad dream, and I pretended to be diplomatic and reassured him that it happens to the best teams and they’ll just have to get it back the next day. And then returned to my desk, smiling in sadistic glee as the weekend started on a high note.