Griffey, who will turn 39 in November, had final say over the deal being consummated, but considering there was a World Series ring possibly waiting for him at the end of a tunnel that went through the South Side, he agreed to the trade. He will join the team in Kansas City for Friday night's game.

As for Williams, he first tried to acquire Griffey back in the 2005 season.

"The one thing, I think we've tried to be consistent over the years, is to start the season in such a way that we have enough depth to insulate ourselves against injuries, poor performance, etcetera, etcetera," Williams said of the move. "As we get down to the months of August and September, it was just simply determined that we were going to go after a couple of areas.

"We were going to look to improve our bullpen, the starter market, we weren't thrilled with that in relation to what we already have in our rotation. So we were going to look at our bullpen, we were going to look to see if we could get better and deeper offensively in the event that poor performance continued and if injury came about. We believe we're definitely going to have to hit more in the second half than we hit in the first half."

The Sun-Times reported Wednesday night that Williams was trying to get other teams involved in what would have been a three- or four-way deal with Oakland to land reliever Huston Street, and when that fell apart, the Sox revisited it again Thursday afternoon, but it didn't happen.

Williams wouldn't confirm that they missed out on Street, but when asked if he was close to adding a reliever he replied, "Evidently, not close enough. We like to dream a little around here, and we had some things that were very interesting and we were very hopeful, but ultimately didn't make enough sense for us both in the present and the long term."

What did make sense in Williams' eyes was acquiring a player who has had the sweetest left-handed swing seen over the last 20 years, to go along with a ridiculous-looking resume that includes AL MVP in 1997, 13 All-Star Games, 608 career home runs and 10 Gold Gloves.

The plan is to put Griffey in center field and move Nick Swisher to first, making Paul Konerko a reserve who will rotate between first base and designated hitter, seeing a lot of time against left-handed pitchers. It gives manager Ozzie Guillen some flexibility, but also some headaches.

TWINS 10, WHITE SOX 6: With Paul Konerko sitting out of the starting lineup, the Sox still managed to put up six runs thanks to home runs by Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome. Factor in two-hit performances from both Orlando Cabrera and Carlos Quentin, and offense wasn't the problem.

The pitching staff, however, was a problem, as it continued to battle with inconsistency since the All-Star break. It came in with a 5.68 ERA in the last 18 games, then allowed 10 more runs.

Starter John Danks was solid but was let down by the bullpen. In the seventh inning, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire did what he does best, arguing a call and getting tossed out. The motivational ploy worked, as his team rallied from a run down to a three-run lead in that inning.