As was announced earlier this week, Dan Patrick will be leaving ESPN in August, which will end his radio show, which I have been listening to since it's inception.

Unlike the end of Tony Kornheiser's ESPN Radio show, I am less saddened by the departure of Patrick. He wasn't as awful as Colin Cowherd, who replaced Kornheiser, but Patrick's show had become increasingly annoying as the mountaintop from which he preached became higher and higher above the masses who listened to him.

If what has been reported is true, and Patrick's ESPN contract didn't expire until 2008, then his early departure to find other oppotunities reeks of hypocrisy. Just as recently as the end of the 2007 college basketball season, when the coaching carousel was going in full force, Patrick ripped coaches who were abandoning their existing contracts to take other jobs. New Kentucky coach Billy Gillespie took the brunt of his disgust, as he was a guest on a show when Dan was at his peak of ripping these college coaches.

From what it sounded like on today's show, Patrick might already be gone.  Guest host Scott Van Pelt gave the e-mail address to the show as radio@espnradio.com instead of the usual danpatrickshow@espnradio.com address.

I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this baseball season.

For the first time in 25 years, the Milwaukee Brewers are looking like a playoff team. They've got the best record in the NL, and also have the largest divisional lead in the league.

The last time they were this good, they were known as Harvey's Wallbangers, chock full of talent and sluggers. Hall of Famers Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and Rollie Fingers were the stars. They even added another Hall of Famer, Don Sutton, near the trading deadline.

This time around, the team is very young, but very talented. Prince Fielder has overtaken Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard in the All Star voting at first base. JJ Hardy has been hitting better than anyone ever imagined. And Ben Sheets is anchoring a rock solid pitching rotation. Let's knock on wood and hope he stays healthy all year long.

As a youngster growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, I first learned to love the Brewers. My best friend's mom was a huge Brewer fan. She always had games on the radio, and her son and I would play imaginary games on a wonderful little contraption called a Pitch-Back all day, every day.

Sadly, I moved away during the summer of that glorious '82 season, all the way to Oklahoma, where everyone was a St. Louis Cardinal fan. And when the World Series rolled around, I was a stranger in a strange land, rooting for the team everyone else was rooting against. And then the Cards beat the Brewers in 7 games. I've never been more crushed.

But now, a quarter century later, hope returns again. And if Milwaukee can't win it all this year, that young nucleus should get more than one chance to win it all. 

This week, it's been really tough to find a sports type yakker who thinks that the one game suspension of the Phoenix Suns' Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw was justified.

Why? Because suspending to key players for violating a rule that mandates a suspension for leaving the bench during an altercation apparently should be ignored when the next game could be directly impacted by the suspensions.

So, since the suspended Suns actually play and contribute to the team on a nightly basis, they shouldn't have been suspended, even though they violated the rule.

How come nobody is blasting Raja Bell for trying to mix it up with the Spurs' Robert Horry, which created the 'altercation' that activated the no-leaving-the-bench rule? If Bell doesn't mix it up with Horry, then Stoudemire and Diaw don't get suspended for leaving the bench, right?

And how many of these sports yakkers would have been defending two players who never play for getting suspended in the same situation? If it has been Sean Marks and Pat Burke, who would have said that they shouldn't be suspended for violating the rule? Anyone? Anyone at all?