UPDATE Griffey has given the OK; he’s going to Chicago. This is so exciting! I hope the White Sox go far.

According to the story on Reds.com:

The Reds will receive right-handed pitcher Nick Masset and second baseman Danny Richar, a source said.

Griffey, 38, is a likely free agent after the season. In the final year of a nine-year deal, the Reds held a $16.5 million club option for 2009, with a $4 million buyout.

The trade that’s been in the works since 2005 but seemed like it would never come may finally be here: FOX Sports (and even the MLB.com pages concur) reports that the Reds and White Sox have come to an agreement to send Ken Griffey Jr. to the windy city, if the slugger agrees to go.

Ken Rosenthal says:

The White Sox, leading the American League Central by a game and a half, would use Griffey mostly in the outfield, the source said. However, they do not have an obvious spot for him unless they make another deal.

The Sox are set at the corners with Carlos Quentin in left and Jermaine Dye in right. They could play Nick Swisher at first to open center for Griffey, a move that would reduce the playing time of first baseman Paul Konerko and designated hitter Jim Thome. But Griffey has not played center regularly since 2006.

Griffey, earning $12.5 million this season in the final year of his contract, is owed more than $4 million in salary. The Reds could pay a portion of that sum to acquire better players in the deal. The White Sox also could be seeking to acquire one of the Reds’ available relievers, right-hander David Weathers or lefty Jeremy Affeldt.

No word yet on what the Reds would get in return.

Just as AOL’s “partnership” with the scantily-clad-and-poor-cue-card-reading Fantasy Sports Girls was giving women sport bloggers a bad name, 15 women who don’t need a sleezeball pervert to write their suggestive commentary for them were launching Playing the Field.

Per their–our–about page:

Featured on this site are some of the best female sports bloggers on the net. These women are smart, sports savvy, and will kick your butt in fantasy ball. Consider this your hub for the best writing women in sports have to offer. You’ll find stuff that will make you laugh, make you think, and sometimes make you crazy. But that’s just like a woman, isn’t it? Throughout this site we will cover everything and anything about sports that deserves our attention. And probably a few things that don’t. But we promise to always entertain you and make you wonder why women don’t rule the sports blogging world. Yet.

Ideas for PTF content include everything from fantasy sports advice to our vision of what our favorite players’ blogs would say, (if they actually wrote them for themselves). Whatever the topic, you’re sure to find something interesting in each woman’s box.

Boxscore

It’s getting harder and harder to watch the Reds. I don’t foresee this ending anytime soon, not until Dusty Baker is fired. I mean, there are only so many jokes and laughs you can have about Corey Patterson leading off.

Patterson’s average is .183, in case you were wondering. His Not Out Percentage is 21.6%. That’s right, he’s made an out 78.4% of the time. Sounds like a prototypical Dusty Baker leadoff man to me!

This was the game I switched to once the Cubs-Brewers game turned into a blowout. I don’t know what I was expecting, certainly not good baseball from the Reds.

Bronson Arroyo, who took the bold, courageous stand of desiring to play for a wannabe-last-place team, was terrible, allowing 6 runs in 6 1/3 innings. Way to show how much you deserve to stay, Bronson. Of course, he did drive in 1 of the 2 runs, so that’s something. At the least, it’s more than Patterson’s done since June 21.

The Reds have now lost 5 in a row and sit in last place, 13.5 games out.

Boxscore

The Cubs made quick work of that battle for first place with the Brewers. They won the second game easily and widened their lead to 3 games, which ensures they will have first all to their little beary lonesome no matter what happens in the final two games of the series.

Last night’s game was kind of a letdown. I’d hoped for another close one like the first one, and with Carlos Zambrano going against Ben Sheets it was certainly possible. But Sheets sucked and Zambrano didn’t. The Brewers offense consisted of an RBI from Mike Cameron. That’s not good enough most nights, let alone when your ace pitcher allows 6 in 5 1/3.

The Brewers have been outplayed these first two games of the series, and they were the team playing better baseball beforehand. It is making me rethink my assessment of the Brewers. We’ll see how they do in the final two games. Maybe without the big pitching guns, Milwaukee’s bats will wake up. I hope so; I’m getting bored.

Boxscore

The first game of the four-game battle for first between the Cubs and Brewers did not disappoint. Well, you could say that C.C. (yes, I’m still using periods) Sabathia didn’t pitch as well as expected after his last three complete games for Milwaukee, but that’s quibbling. He was still solid, allowing 3 earned runs in 6 2/3 innings.

No, the real disappointment was my out-of-the-blue 100 degree fever that had me asleep around the halfway point of the game. Stupid sick body wanting to heal. As if sleeping will help.

It looked like the game might go into extra frames when it was tied at 4 in the 9th, but Derrek Lee wanted to go home. He smacked a 2-run double off Salomon Torres, and the Brewers were unable to come back against Carlos Marmol.

Chicago now has a 2 game lead on Milwaukee, although I imagine the Brewers plan on doing something about that today.

Boxscore

The Cubs came back against the Marlins and Jason Marquis’ incompetency yesterday, to return to sole possession of first place before heading to Milwaukee.

Marquis de Suck lived up to his nickname, allowing 6 runs in 6 innings. However, the Cubs showed their first signs of offensive life in the last week or so when they dropped a 4-spot on the board in the 7th to take their first lead of the game. Mike Fontenot provided the bulk of that, with a pinch-hit 3-run double.

Newcomer Jeff Samardzija got his first career save, ably filling in for a disabled Kerry Wood.

Now the Cubs head to Milwaukee for a series I hope to catch a few games of. The Brewers are about the only team playing exciting baseball in the Central right now, and it would be nice to watch a baseball game that wasn’t over after the starters were announced (I’m looking at you, Josh Fogg).

Boxscore

Apparently, Joey Votto was sending a message to the Reds managerial staff last week when he hit a line drive off of Josh Fogg’s face that resulted in him missing a start. Fogg had recovered enough to put in his usual “pitching” yesterday, allowing 7 runs over 3 2/3 innings. Now that’s the way to make your former team miss you.

It’s also the Reds way of attempting to not be swept by a team worse than them.

There were no offensive highlights and no pitching ones, either, although Francisco Cordero pitched a scoreless inning. When the Reds started the Rockies series, there were pie-in-the-sky rumblings about how a sweep would get the Reds back to .500.

Hopefully, that pathetic showing will prompt owner Bob Castellini and GM Walt Jocketty to use the trading deadline to load up for the future. Of course, perhaps the best way to do that would be to fire Dusty Baker.

Tonight, the first 30,000 lucky fans to Great American Ball Park will receive this bobblehead of Adam Dunn “sporting 1980s threads.” Some think the outfit is Don Johnson-esque. Others say Spencer from “The Hills.” I heard Brandon Phillips on the radio yesterday say that the bobblehead made Dunn look like Clay Aiken.

My first thought, though, was that it’s a Roxbury suit, as if fake news from 2005 is till rattling around in the Reds’ collective consciousness:

The search for the bat took Kearns and Dunn on a wacky adventure through Denver, starting at a local high-end tailor. They had apparently had matching irridescent suits made because they wanted to look “just like those Night-at-the-Roxbury dudes on Saturday Night Live.”

“What Is Love?” by Haddaway blasted in the background as the two tried on the new suits. That’s when they noticed the tattoos on their backs.

“Dude, what does mine say?” asked Dunn.
“’Donkey,’ what does mine say?” Kearns replied.
“Dude, how many times do I have to tell you that only chicks can call me that, and what does mine say?” Dunn responded.
“They fit all that on my back?” asked a bewildered Kearns.

They are playing Colorado, which is who they were playing when this story took place, and putting Dunn in a fancy suit with a big gold chain seems otherwise irrelevant to the game. On the other hand, the intern who came up with this idea was probably too young to be reading RHM in 2005, just as Dunn, born in 1979 in Texas, would have been too young (and Texan) to ever have worn that suit.

Looks good on him, though. He ought to consider it.

Boxscore

I thought the Cardinals had this one and that the Brewers would fall to 2 games back of Chicago thanks to the Cubs earlier win. But now, I underestimated the mediocrity of Ryan Franklin.

Having watched Franklin with the Reds, you would think I would have been prepared for the homer Ryan Braun launched off him in the 9th. I guess LaRussa’s bullpen voodoo magic is wearing off.

The win was the Brewers 8th in a row and gave them the sweep of the 4-game series against St. Louis. This is the longest winning streak this century for Milwaukee, the hottest team in the Majors right now. And with pitchers like Sheets and Sabathia in the rotation, it’d be hard not to look over your shoulder if you’re a Cubbie.

The Cardinals look a little tired. At least, the pitchers do. LaRussa wants a trade, but now would be a bad time to trade away the future. Bullpen help is needed, but the best solution might be a starting pitcher who can go more than 5 innings on a regular basis. With Todd Wellemeyer and Braden Looper, the Cardinals have to use their bullpen for 8 innings every 5 days. That’s rough. If they can address that, they might hang in the race.