How exactly does a team lose on a suicide squeeze in the top of the ninth inning?  How exactly does a team, which had the opposing pitcher on the ropes all day, not win a close ballgame?  How does a team lose to God awful Will Ohman and Bobby Howery?  You do when you are the 2007 Chicago White Sox.

In the first inning, after they were already down a run because Alfonso Soriano was more focused than Javy Vasquez, Scott Podsednik singled, stole second, moved to third on a grounder and came home on a fielder's choice.  And you thought "Okay, maybe they have a chance today."  But as inning after inning and runner after runner was stranded, you thought "I hope the Sox aren't the team that blinks." 

The Sox had some opportunities in this game.  I have no clue what Luis Terrero was thinking  in the bottom of the second with one out trying to advance an extra base on a single.  See Luis, that's why Soriano is known as a five tool player:  He can  hit, hit for power,  run,  field and THROW.  And somehow you thought, on a team that scores as often as Rosie O'Donnell, that you, somehow were going to outrun him.  Instead of first and third and one out, it was third and two outs.  A couple of weekends ago, during the Sox game, Thom Brennaman and Mark Grace, who have both done extensive work for the D-Backs talked about what a great prospect Terrero was and how he just was never able to put it together as a D-Back.  Based on the tone of the conversation, you concluded that he had million dollar talent and a ten cent head.  Yesterday, he wasn't even worth $1.98.

All told, they left ten men on, wasted a terrific effort from Vasquez and slid even further down the pole of anonymity.  Now the rumors are really swirling, the latest having Mark Buerhrle  changing  Sox.  Jermaine Dye may go on  the DL, so his value as trade bait is now irrelevant.  Joe Crede is most likely out for the year, so he will fetch no prospects.  Tad Ichuchi might be had for a prospect or two, but that's very unlikely at this point. 

So, all of us, the team, the fans are stuck in the middle of a vast sea of losing in a row boat with only one oar.I'm almost at the point where I might try to swim for it.

Lightning Round

• At least the Brewers are making me smile.
• The Chicago Blackhawks have drafted Akim "The Dream" Aliu, a Nigerian born, Ukrane and Canadian raised center and right winger.  Obviously, Hawks GM Dale Tallon takes the saying "It's not a sprint it's a marthon" a little too seriously.
  
• Bobby Cox receives a record tying thumb.  He could take the extra time to tell Chipper and Smoltzy to play nice.
• I really can't believe, knowing what Andy McPhail knows about Johnnie B. Baker that he would ever consider hiring him to manage the Orioles.  If the team needs a fire breathing ass kicker, then Dusty is Miles Davis miscast as Louis Armstrong.  I really believe that McPhail is talking to Baker because he is a minority candidate, not because he has a chance at the gig.  It's the worng gig for Baker who needs a veteran team to run. 
  
• Former Reds and Tigers manager Sparky Anderson and former Calgary Flames and Tampa Bay coach turned broadcaster Terry Crisp recently shared a golf cart at a charity outing in Canada.  Only Dolly Parton has a more perfect pair.
• A woman, who loves boxing, saddled her child with 25 nicknames, all named after champions. I wonder if the birth certificate was published in volumes.
• Denny Hamlin can't land in Milwaukee (where exactly do you set a heliocopter down on 84th st.?) and his releif driver starts the Busch race at the Milwaukee Mile, thus getting credit for the victory.  Maybe Denny will send himself Fed Ex next time.
• Rick Hendrick wants to buy the Number 8 from DEI.  For those of you lacking NASCAR history knowledge, the "8" that Junior uses now belonged to his granfather Ralph and was his Dad's first number until he moved to RCR and the more familiar and famous "3". Since Teresa is not kin to anyone Earnhardt, she might give it up for the right price.
  
• Hank Medress, the lead singer of the sixties band "the Tokens" sleeps with the Lion tonight.
• Tennessee now requires that EVERYONE purchasing beer or wine be carded to insure that they are of legal age.  EVERYONE.  Although the state and the state liquor commission tell us that this puts Tennessee in the forefront of states combating illegal  alcohol sales,  the truth is, as a forty-six year-old man, I have earned the privileged of buying beer and should not have to flash my ID everytime I do so.  This law, like purchasing cigarettes at Walgreen's, is so that everyone is treated the same way, thus reducing the possibility of law suits.
• Isn't ironic that "Chemical Ali" will hang and not be sent to gas chamber?
• Do you think you could go eleven days with out sugar, a phone and the internet?  Heck, the teenager that lives in this house can't go eleven seconds without the phone.
• In case you missed it, here's crude video of last night's Paul Lo Duca meltdown.  I know Phillip Wellman sir and you are no Phillip Wellman!