NEW YORK, N.Y., Oct. 27 — I have a confession to make. I’m a Yankee fan, and my day wasn’t a total loss. My brother? Now he had a bad day.

For the most part, I am a baseball fan, but I have dipped into another sport now and again. And I’ve found that I can get pretty excited about them too — provided there’s a wager involved. John went to Monmouth Racetrack today, where they featured simulcasting (and parimutuel betting) on the Breeders Cup races from Belmont. He placed a few bets for me too. I lost all day. He won, but only early, so by the time the last race rolled around the only money being bet was his and mine. I picked an early-line 8-1 that went off at 6-1 named Tiznow; his was an 8-1 named Sakhee that held at 8-1. They both closed in the last two furlongs, and made it a three-way race with the early leader, but by time they had reached the stretch it was Tiznow and Sakhee, neck and neck, one inching ahead, and then the other, until the final stride made me a winner by the proverbial nose.

Now that was a painful loss for John.

9-1, when you’re down 5-1 in the third, and all 9-1 in the fourth, that’s virtually painless. And it’s not like it was a shock. We’ve seen it before. In 1996 we had the bad luck to close the Orioles out of the ALCS on Sunday, while the Braves and Cardinals played three more games. And then Game 1 was rained out, and we didn’t play until Sunday, Oct. 20. 12-1. Ugly, but in retrospect, not that painful (certainly nothing we couldn’t recover from.) The Braves had two full days off and it didn’t bother them. Why? I don’t know. And the D’backs had six, but when you’re a team that relies on two starters carrying you, is it any wonder the layoff was no problem for them?

And then there is the genius of our starter, Mike Mussina. That’s right, I said our starter. He doesn’t like long rest. He doesn’t like short rest. It was obvious in the first inning both from the fact that it took him eight pitches to strike out Womack and that four pitches later he surrendered the sixth homer this year by Craig Counsell that he neither had a fastball, nor could he locate it. Mike will have the requisite four days rest (and no more) when next he takes the mound in the Cathedral for Game 5 Thursday, and he’ll pitch brilliantly, just as he has been. There’s simply no credible evidence to the contrary.

On July 12, coming out of the All Star break with the rest days and rotation all out of whack (where have I heard that before?) he was massacred by another team that does not hit a lot, the perhaps soon-to-be-defunct Florida Marlins, 9-3. Five days later he held a team that had a very good year in the Philadelphia Phillies to one run in seven innings of an eventual 11-inning Yankee win.

So if you want to know how I feel about being down one in games, and losing 9-1 in a big game, I’ll tell you what I said after Game 5 vs. Oakland, “There is nothing like coming from behind!” And if you ask how it feels after a painful loss, that reply is simple too: “I don’t know. I’ll tell you when we have one.”

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!