Has Dale Sveum managed his last game in Milwaukee?

The word today is toast.

As in the Milwaukee Brewers, who became toast at 3:04pm local time yesterday. While the Brew Crew did make post-season play for the first time in 26 seasons, they went pretty much quietly -- although they did manage to stretch it to four games and therefore give their ticket-holding fans both of their schedule allotment.

So, now the body count begins -- which players are toast and which ones will actually wear a Milwaukee uniform come Opening Day 2009 -- and that includes the fate of interim manager Dale Sveum.

The Capitol Times' Dennis Semrau doesn't take sides, but does quote a couple of Brewers who'd like Sveum to return.

Maybe, the bigegst news out of Miller Park yesterday was the Brewers considering a serious run at keeping stellar free-agent pitcher CC Sabathia and even more astonishing, the burly millionaire to be not dismissing the albeit remote possibility.

Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman quotes Sabathia "Sabathia, 28, had only positive words for Milwaukee. "I'd be lying if I didn't say it was one of the better times in my life and my career,'' he said. "I enjoyed my time here and we accomplished a lot.'' He also complimented interim manager Dale Sveum, pitching coach Mike Maddux and many of his Brewers teammates."

For his part, Brewers' owner Mark Attanasio tells Bloomberg.com that he'd like more revenue sharing from the likes of the New York Yankees -- which would give the team a better chance to re-sign Sabathia.

``It's always amusing to me to hear the Yankees, they can't get into the playoffs with $200 million, and they say, `well, we've done enough,''' Attanasio, the chief investment officer at money management firm TCW Group Inc., said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio's ``On the Ball'' program. ``The advantages that you're given in the bigger market teams -- if they really wanted to have a fair fight they would do more revenue sharing, but I guess the obvious battle lines are drawn on that.'' 

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal's Michael Hunt feel that Prince Fielder should be shipped out for more pitching help.  while Hunt adds, "(it's) time to give up on Rickie Weeks. Maybe J.J. Hardy should be moved to third to accommodate Alcides Escobar. These are considerations for the next few months for an offense that cannot move forward as presently constructed.'

Meanwhile, are the Wisconsin Badgers toast as well? After their second concecutive Big Ten loss, the football team has fallen out of the AP Top 25 and replaced with David Letterman's alma mater, Ball State.

The campus paper quotes J.P. Giglio, who covers the Atlantic Coast Conference for the News and Observer, and the first AP voter to vote for Ball State this season. Giglio was the only person to vote the Cardinals into the top 25 three weeks ago, and he ranked them No. 19 this week. "It's a question of do you vote for two-loss Wisconsin or unbeaten Ball State," Giglio said. "People try to reward teams for being undefeated."

Are the Packers toast? Well, in the terribly middling NFC North division, their 2-3 record is merely a game out of first place. Still, their defense looked pitiful versus the eminantly beatable Atlanta Falcons Sunday.

The Green Bay Press Gazette's Mike Vandermause column read: Same old, same old, and few answers.  "It's not a matter of trying harder, or studying more game film, or preparing better or ramping up the sense of urgency. The Packers have done those things, and all they have to show for those efforts is as many losses in the first month of 2008 as they had during the entire 2007 season.

Maybe the answer is simple. Maybe the Packers simply aren't that good. Losing at home to the Falcons and rookie quarterback Matt Ryan provides strong evidence to support that theory."

Perhaps, it's merely karma that the Falcons might finally have the next Brett Favre in young Matt Ryan, as the still-styled "Da Wurst Band In Da World once observed in their Michael Vick Polka that all of the Vick's problems wouldn't have happened in Atlanta, if they hadn't traded Favre in the first place.

In the meantime, the Cubs are toast and the White Sox are still playing, so there's at least one reason to smile on an otherwise toast-laden Monday morning.