Here's what I want from the Chicago White Sox in the second half of this season: I want them to compete. No, not for a division title or a wild card, because clearly that ship has sailed, but at least play competitive baseball.  Hit the ball, catch the ball, and to the members of the Sox bullpen who are not named Bobby Jenks, pitch the damn ball.  I want Jerry Owens and Luis Terrero  to quit running the bases like they are mentally challenged.  I want Josh Fields to actually go to his right and make a play.  I want Juan Uribe's undivided attention on every play, offensively and defensively.  I want someone to lay down a bunt once in  a while. I want big two out hits all game long.

I want the Sox to score a few runs in the bottom of the ninth and beat someone.  I want them to be in every game they play until they are mathematically eliminated and start parading kids onto the field.  I do not want 20-14 losses or 12-0 shutouts.  I want good, crisp, clean baseball.  And I want these guys to get back to .500 so they can quit being such a damn joke.

Really, boys.  It's not to much to ask.  And you know you are capable of doing it.

Lightning Round:

• The Sox begin either their road to recovery or their July death march tonight in the Charm City.
• Gavin Floyd gets a bus ticket to Charlotte for more seasoning.  The way he pitched last Friday against Minnesota,  he couldn't get seasoned if he rolled naked and oiled in a vat of Mrs. Dash.
• The Milwaukee Brewers are starting to show up on the national radar.  The experts all think they won't be there at the end.  It's up to Ned Yost to prove them wrong.
• The ratings for the all-star game are down 13%.  That's because no one really cares about all-star games.
  
• Mathematically, only fifteen drivers have a chance at the twelve slots in NASCAR's championship chase.  That doesn't start until late August.  So much for parity in NASCAR.
• Looks like, at least from a PR standpoint, that everything is okay now between teammates Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin.  I am not buying it.
  
• A judge has ordered Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher to parenting class to teach him how to cope with the mother of his son.  Being a good parent does not involve some liberal, touchy, feely, Dr. Phil wannabe telling you what to do.  It involves common sense, which in the case of Urlacher and the stripper/extortionist  is non-existent. You can't teach common sense.
• Stewart Mandel from SI presents his list of the top and bottom college coaches.  Note to Alabama fans: Look who is number two on the worst coach list.
• Former umpire Shag Crawford has died.  Crawford not only umped in the bigs for twenty years, he also sired MLB ump Jerry Crawford and NBA official Joey Crawford.  I have no idea how he got the nickname "Shag", but I am positive it came years before "Austin Powers" so it probably doesn't mean what you think.
  
• You are a New York Mets hitter who just struck out and in the fleeting moments before you have to go back out to play defense, you want to talk to your hitting instructor about your last two swings.  Except, you can't find him in the dugout.  That's probably because he's in the clubhouse playing cards.
• The NHL can't put enough meat in the seats in the US, yet they go off to the UK to play the opener.  Another example of the idiocy of Gary Bettman.
• I have to admit that lately I haven't watched much Food Network.  But they have done something that at first annoyed me and now intrigues me.  They've moved Emeril Live up to 6pm CDT and moved "Good Eats" to 7pm CDT.  The reason?  Good Eats is the more popular of the two shows.  Who would have thunk it.  And by the way, there is nobody on the Food Network I enjoy more than Alton Brown.
• Thanks to liberal guilt and public nagging, Ken Burns has re-configured his WWII documentary.  Proof again, if you weep and wail loud enough, someone will knee jerk.
• "The Decider" is now the second most unpopular President in history tied  with Tricky Dick Nixon but still trailing the all-time champ, Harry Truman.  I guess they didn't do polls when Hoover, Andrew Johnson and Van Buren were in the White House, otherwise Bush would be fifth most unpopular.
• Speaking of Nixon, if you want a great look into how every second on camera is managed for a President, read this report from the Smoking Gun.  Being President is not about having the best ideas or having the best leadership skills, it is about appearing the most Presidential and having the best image.  In 1970, we had kids being flown home in body bags every day and these guys were worried about how much make-up Nixon should wear.
• A Chicago TV reporter is fired after she takes her kids swimming at the home of someone that she had been investigating and gets caught on camera by a competing station on top of it.  Although the sentiment in Chicago is that she was wrongly dismissed, the fact remains she violated (and I realize this could be an oxymoron in this decade) journalistic ethics.  If you weaken the credibility of a news organization like that, you give them no alternative.  I applaud WMAQ-TV for doing the right thing.
  
• Springfield, VT, come on down.  You're the winner of the Simpson's movie premiere.
• David Vitter, the republican senator from Louisiana who did the big mia culpa for being in the DC madame's book is still in the news because there is no talent like local talent.
• Memo to John Edwards: Quit soiling the legacy of Bobby Kennedy by comparing yourself to him. You are in no way, shape or form him.  For starters, Bobby Kennedy was relevant.
  
• A new study says men drive with one hand because they are at one with their car while women drive with two hands because they understand a car is a machine and treat it like one.  HOW ABOUT MEN HAVE BIGGER FREAKIN' HANDS?
• Legend has it that LBJ had a buzzer installed in his outer office so that if his wife were coming, the secret service agent could push the button alerting the President so he could, um, get the first penis back in his pants zip back up in time.  The woman for whom the buzzer tolled died yesterday at 94.
• How come 36 years after Doors frontman Jim Morrison died, some guy decides it happened totally differently than it did.  Because he wrote a book, that's why.
• Seven more reasons why running with the bulls is sheer idiocy.
• A teenager broke into his neighbor's house repeatedly to watch porn on their computer.  You people know what a password is?  Or, how about a portable hard drive? 
  
• Actor/comedian/former Python John Cleese is selling his ranch in California where he owns several horses,  llamas, alpacas, an emu, chinchillas and nearly a dozen cats.  But no parrots.
• Today's list is jobs that have the most security.  For some strange reason, neither "major league hitting coach" or "radio program director" appear on this list.