Who needs Erica Kane when you have Danica Patrick?

Why worry about the plight of Victor Newman when you can fret about Brett?

Who cares about the drama in Genoa City,Wis., when there is some pretty good drama going on in Green Bay, Wis.?

Sports always have had a certain element of melodrama to them.

Admit it. You cried when the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. They were tears of joy, I'm sure. But they were there.

Paul Pierce was certainly doing his best Susan Lucci while writhing around on the parquet floor in Boston with a "knee injury" during the NBA Finals. He could have received a Daytime Emmy for that performance.

But this summer has bordered on lunacy.

Eat your heart out, Luke Spencer. You can pine for Laura all you want, but nothing will be as riveting as watching Brett Favre long for the field in his summer of discontent.

And the Packers telling him, "Well, maybe — as a backup."

(Insert close-up of Favre, stunned look on his face, while overly dramatic music plays into a commercial break).

Some of these sports stories should appear on SoapNet, not ESPN.

Everyone's favorite drama queen, Danica Patrick, went all Alexis Carrington on Milka Duno in the pits of the IndyCar Series race in Ohio last week.

Patrick was unhappy about Duno cutting in front of her during a Saturday morning practice and let her know about it.

Duno, doing her best Krystal Carrington, threw a towel in Patrick's face, not once, but twice.

Surprisingly, Patrick didn't throw down with Duno. A towel in the face is the universal soap opera signal for commencing a cat fight. But Patrick refrained. Still, it was must-see TV.

The Jason Taylor-Bill Parcells dude feud just came to an end, sadly. But that was good for countless hours of entertainment and fodder for Soap Opera Digest to write: "Shocking news! The real story why Taylor wants to dance away from the Dolphins!"

But the Who Killed J.R. moment of the summer has to belong to Favre and his alleged tawdry affair with the Minnesota Vikings.

The Packers claim Favre is just trying to throw himself into the arms of another organization: The Vikings. And the jilted green and gold will have nothing of it.

I can almost hear the voiceover now:

"Will Brett find happiness with the Pack? Will the Vikings pry him away with their promises of playoff glory? Will Aaron Rodgers

ever start a game in the NFL? These questions and more will be answered on the next episode of 'How the Brett Favre grays.'"Actually, none of those questions will be answered any time soon.This soap opera figures to drag on well into the fall. Oh, joy! What a cliffhanger! I wonder how it will end?Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.