By GEORGE GRAHAM

ggraham@repub.com



HOLYOKE - It must be Christmas: An ardent Yankee fan just saved the day for a member of Red Sox Nation.



Springfield resident Robert K. Preble faced a Christmas Eve shopper's nightmare at the Holyoke Mall on the morning of Christmas Eve when he reached for his wallet, and it wasn't there.



Preble had just arrived at the mall to buy Christmas presents when he realized that his wallet - with more than $1,100 inside - was likely still inside the Yellow Cab taxi that had taken him there.



Preble said he lives on a fixed income, and the money represented a year's worth of scrimping and saving.



Preble said he promptly canceled his breakfast order at the food court and was in the early stages of a heart-thumping panic as he frantically dialed Yellow Cab of Springfield in an effort to track down his wallet and the gifts to others that it represented.



"I was starting to freak out pretty good," Preble said.



A Christmas Eve angel quickly appeared, however, in the form of cabbie Joseph J. Galano wearing a smile and bearing the wallet - with contents intact.



It was not lost on Preble, an ardent Red Sox fan, that Galano was also wearing a Yankees jacket.



Galano, an Agawam resident, said he discovered the wallet after stopping his cab, post-Preble, to clear ice off the window.



A quick glance at the cash inside told Galano that its owner must be frantic with worry.



"I said 'Oh, this guy must be having a heart attack,'" he said.



Galano drove back to the mall, parked and walked inside, in an effort to find his cashless customer.



After some time, Galano found Preble at the food court. "He was probably looking a good 15 to 20 minutes," Preble said.



"He smiled like hell when he saw me," Galano said. "I felt more like Santa Claus than a cabbie."



Preble praised (and tipped) Galano for saving his Christmas. "In this age, where everybody is getting laid off and short on money, you know that has got to be a temptation," Preble said.



Preble said he wasn't surprised at all to find a Yankees fan with a big heart. "Not really, it's all in good fun," he said of the often hard-core rivalry between the two baseball dynasties.



Galano, who knows a thing or two about loss - he lost his voice to throat cancer seven years ago and requires a voice box to communicate - said he had no doubt about doing the right thing.



"I knew that it meant a lot to him," Galano said.



