The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again expecting the same result.  Thus, we sum up the season for the 2007 to date of the Chicago White Sox.

If your expectations as a White Sox fan are that the hitting will soon start, two of three injured starters will come back and spark the team and the bullpen will miraculously start pitching like 2005, may we suggest that you visit your local mental health facility and have a long talk with someone with a couch.

If your expectations are that this team is going and will go nowhere this season and that Kenny Williams needs to unload the deadwood and plan for 2008's third place finish, then welcome to being a Sox fan 2007 style.

The sad reality of this lost season is that outside of the starting pitching (which is beginning to crack under the strain of carrying the ball club) this team has generated little if any excitement.  Okay, maybe for fans of opposing teams. The Sox couldn't hold a lead if they were protecting it with Uzi's.  They can't come from behind, they can't win one run games and they can't trot out anyone between a starter and Bobby Jenks who doesn't feature the chemical compounds found in gasoline.  It's bad, kids.  It's beyond life support.  It's time to pull the plug and give it a dignified death.

While I have issues with some of his strategy, I don't blame Ozzie (I'll leave that to Mariotti.) I think Ozzie keeps going to the fridge and finding broken eggs and moldy cheese and is expected to deliver an omelet.  I don't blame the players.  I wish Jermaine Dye would play like he was mad at somebody. I wish Paul Konerko would close the club house door and destroy the place with a bat.  I wish Matt Thornton would board a bus for Charlotte and not return until he realized that life is more than just fastballs.  I wish A.J. Pierzynski would win the captain's job from Paulie in a poker game and give new meaning to the phrase "put my boot up your ass."  But sadly, this, like a winning season is not to be and the time has come to look reality in the eye and say those words Sox fans hate to say this early in the season "When do the Bears start training camp?"

I also do not blame hitting coach Greg Walker.  He didn't go suddenly stupid.  He has said in interview after interview the problem is his hitters are going up there scared.  Well, he could hold their hand when they hit, but then would probably get hit with a foul ball or a bat.  Look, professional hitters have to want to be helped, you can't make them.  Wanting to fire Walker for the collapse of the hitting is like wanting to fire Don Cooper for the utter failure of the bullpen.  No one has suggested that, have they?  If you have to fire a coach, take out Razor Shines who would wave a one legged man around third on a shallow single to left field. 

The problem with this team from day one hasn't been that they can't hit, it's that they are beginning to look their age.  And, unlike the Indians, Tigers and Twins, the re-enforcements sent to the front to help aid the effort, aren't quite ready yet.  Don't get me wrong, I think Ryan Sweeney, Jerry Owens, Josh Fields, Nick Masset and John Danks are fine young players, but not today, not tomorrow and certainly not this season.  The kids need time, and if Kenny and the organization were honest with themselves, they would do what the Sox did back in the early nineties: Go with the kids, get them the ABs and take the lumps until the kids blossom.

It worked so far for Doug Melvin and the Milwaukee Brewers.  Now, after two years of losing close games, the Brewers feature almost a totally home grown lineup: Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, J.J. Hardy, Ryan Braun, Billy Hall, Jeff Jenkins and Cory Hart.  While the sledding has been tough the last six weeks, those kids can and will play.  And not just this year.

In the meantime,  outside of the Sox kids mentioned, you wonder who is ready to play right now.  There are no middle infielders in the system.  There are no first basemen or catchers.  So, even if you give the kids some PT the rest of the year, you still will have to suffer through the embarrassing aging of some of the stars.  Unless you can find a willing buyer.

Therefore, as a public service, I wish to offer the following road map to Kenny Williams, not that he needs it, but because I care.

• Jermaine Dye is playing like a guy in the last year of a contract who has made up his mind he is leaving at the end of the year.  Reputation alone will help him secure a job somewhere, but trading him to a left coast  NL team for a Jonathan Broxton or Scott Linebrink might go a long way to patching up what has been a God awful bullpen.

• See if you can find, even in your own league, a taker for Paul Konerko.  I love Paulie, but his one dimensional act is wearing thin.  Let Darrin Erstad play first when he returns.  It's a defensive upgrade and it adds more speed to what must be the slowest line-up in baseball.  The Angels were interested once, maybe they will be again.

• When the season is over, non-tender Joe Crede.  He obviously was more interested in going out and building some numbers this year instead of taking care of his back last winter.  Now he's screwed not only his team, but himself.  Cut the cord.

• See what you can do about re-signing Tad Iguchi.  I really believe he's having an off year because of the uncertainty of next year.  He won't command that much on the free agent market, so he should be a steal.

• Place a big sign on your bullpen that says "Fire Sale."  No offer will be refused except for Bobby Jenks, who is not on the table.

• Among your starters, you really need to keep Mark Buerlhe.  Badly.  He's under 30, he's an inning eater and he is the leader of your pitching staff.  He needs to stay and you need to pay him.  And, extend Judy Garland while your at it, even if you have to lock the Chairman in a closet and sign them to four year contracts.

So, in retooling this team, here's what I'm thinking you need, Kenny:

• A better bullpen (one that can actually hold a lead)
  
• More team speed (the ability to go first to third on a single would be nice once in awhile)
• Less reliance on the Chairman's holy long ball
• More team speed  (so important, I mentioned it twice)
  
• A backup catcher (or even a starting catcher) who can actually throw somebody out more than once a season.
  

Now, for the rest of this year Sox fans, in  the words of Hawk, are going to have to "bow our necks and strap it down" because we are all dressed up (in our 2005 World Championship clothes) and have nowhere to go (but down.) 

One other note to Brooks Boyer: You need to change the marketing plans for this year.  Scrap the grinder crap and the Erstad silhouette crap and deliver an honest, yet edgy message: WHITE SOX BASEBALL 2007, THANK GOD WE'RE IN THE SAME DIVISION WITH THE ROYALS.

Captain Obvious, over and out.