You are a star pitcher and a former world champion on a team who has hit hard times.  Your contract is up at the end of the season.  You've gone to management and expressed a desire to stay with the team at a reduced rate.  Yes, you could garner much more money on the open market, but you enjoy your teammates and you enjoy the city you are pitching in.

The negotiations have reached a sticking point as the management of your team refuses your request for a no trade clause.  With the trade deadline looming, you are keenly aware (as are the fans and media) that you are the most valuable bargaining chip your team has.  If your agent and team management can not agree on a contract soon, you could find yourself modeling a different uniform soon.

So, in what could, at least theoretically be your last appearance in the uniform of your current team and your final appearance at the only major league stadium you've ever called your home park, you go out and pitch.  You leave the game after going deep into the eighth inning and giving up two runs on nine hits.  Your have a four run lead in what could be a storybook finish to your career in the uniform that you are currently wearing. As you leave the field, the fans rise and give you a long, loud, standing ovation.  You tip your cap in appreciation to the people who shout your name and have supported you since your call up to the big leagues.  As you sit on the bench in the dugout, you think "life is good."  But then something would go horribly wrong.

The bullpen which has plagued your team all year implodes (again) and the other team comes with in a run in the top of the eighth.  "No worries" you think because your all-star closer will be on the mound in the top of the ninth.  But after your all-star closer hangs more sliders than a White Castle grill cook, your team winds up losing the game 7-6.  And maybe, in some small corner of your mind, you think "Hmm, maybe it is time to move on."

For Mark Buehrle, this is the reality he currently lives in.  Although White Sox General manager Ken Williams swears to anyone who will listen he will get a deal done and that he's not going to gut his team, one must wonder what Buehrle thought, leaving the field with a four run lead only to see it evaporate thanks to the total ineffectiveness of Ryan Bukvich and Bobby Jenks. 

You would hope that what could be your final memory of Mark Buehrle is not a total bullpen meltdown which cost him and the Sox a victory last night.  But if it is, it's typical of what's gone on in 2007.  I've already coined the new marketing slogan for 2008.  Chicago White Sox baseball: Losing sucks, we'll try to suck less.

Birds and Sox tonight at US Commiskey Park

Lightning Round

• Because the Sox game was on WCIU, MLB Extra innings subscribers got the MESN feed of the game.  I fond Jim Palmer to be an insightful analyst.
• Shhh.  Here come the Cubs.
• Once again the Milwaukee Brewers show some backbone.  After losing two of three to the Cubs, the crew took out their frustrations on the Pirates.  You know it's your year when Damian Miller has a seven RBI game.
• The fact that Tank Johnson wasn't tanked is irrelevant to the fact that he got pulled over at 3:30 in the morning and was suspected of driving drunk.  The Bears made the right call.  Also lost in this is if he were over the legal limit at the time of his arrest and they took him to the police station to do the blood work, that's probably an hour or so in elapsed time that his blood alcohol level could decrease before he is actually tested.  That's why most attorneys tell you to decline the Breathalyzer test and wait to get tested back at the station.  The Bears did the right thing in cutting Johnson; he betrayed their trust after he promised to have changed.  Keeping him would send a message to the team that this kind of behavior is tolerated, where clearly it is not.
  
• The Chicago Blackhawks have signed center Robert Lang. This would have been a great move if a) it would have been made ten years ago and b) if it included Jaromir Jagr.  By the way, the two-year extension of inept and ineffective Hawks GM Dale Tallon pales in comparison to the thirty-one years of inept whatever he does provided by Bob Pulford.  There is no one in sports, not even Matt Millen, who is more useless than Bob Pulford.  No one.
• Does anybody besides the New York Post care what kind of t-shirt C-Rod wears?
• Looks like when Mike Hargrove left Seattle, he took the winning streak with him.
• Your chance to watch water polo, soccer and an occasional d-list football game is coming soon to a cable system near you.
• The Milwaukee Bucks want to have a conversation with Yi Jianlian, their first round draft pick.  Yi's handlers, meantime, are demanding a trade.  So far, Yi has insulted Milwaukee and the Bucks by refusing to talk to them and by saying that he wants to play in an Asian heavy city (read top 10 market.)  I'm not sure why that is, exactly.  It's not like there's Asian TV or Asian radio so this guy can do bunches of endorsements.  Milwaukee is not a small town, but it's not a big town either.  The traffic is rather tame, the people are very friendly and Larry Harris is a good guy (and a fun one, too.)  I think the real issue here is Yi wants to be in a position to win NOW and doesn't want to wait a couple of years while the Bucks begin to rebuild.  I think it's time to take out the big boot of American capitalism and insert it up his backside.  Like Toby Keith says "It's the American way."
• Let's see.  We're in a war we can't win.  Gas prices are too high.  Milk, meat and basic food prices are through the roof because grain is being used for gas, not food.  The "Decider" has decided to pardon his master's buddy, even though Scooter Libby clearly obstructed justice and deserves to rot in a jail cell. Yet, despite all that,  our government has found time to send their revenue agents to beat up on some poor clubhouse attendants to make sure they reported the tips they get from players.  Here's my take on this: The FBI is using the IRS to squeeze the clubhouse guys into singing like the guy from the Mets did about steroids.  If they cooperate, the IRS may not take their home and every penny they ever worked for.  Aren't you just proud to be an American when you hear crap like this?
• Cliff Ellis gets picked off the scrap heap and recycled.  I still hold out hope it may happen to me someday.
• One of the great marathon runners of all time suffers a non-fatal heart attack.  Memo to the diet police: Heart attacks can happen to anyone, not just people who look like me.
• Bud Collins, whose passion for tennis actually makes it watchable for at least ten minutes, gets canned by NBC in a "budget cutting move."  Loosely translated, this means "We are cutting out of the budget seventy-eight year olds who no longer resonate with our younger audience and because we paid a lot for John McEnroe and we like him much better."
• John McCain fires fifty staffers because he can't raise enough money.  If he can't raise money now, what's going to happen when Fred Thompson actually gets in the race?
• To the surprise of absolutely no one, Chris Benoit's doctor becomes this decades version of Dr. George Nichopoulos.
• Sex makes you smarter. Or at least makes your brain grow.  There's a line here about people in mobile homes should all be brain surgeons, but I won't go there.
  
• A sleeping man gets whacked with a phone because his girlfriend was convinced he was dreaming of someone else. 
  
• A lawsuit against a Philly restaurant critic may force the guy to appear on camera during a deposition, thus ending his career.  If restaurants know what you look like, you'll never get normal service.
• Larry the Cable Guy gets his own beer.  What's next?  Paris Hilton wine?
• Take the Bruce Willis Tress test.