The Atlanta Braves have apparently made a trade to acquire starting pitcher Ryan Dempster from the Chicago Cubs, but that trade has to be approved by none other than Dempster himself. As a player with ten years of big league service time, and five years with the same team, Dempster has the right under Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement to veto any trade of which is a part of.

Yesterday was met with a rash of excitement as the news of the trade came down, then utter confusion as the details became muddled and nothing official was announced. The story of the Dempster trade was broken by MLB Braves beat writer Mark Bowman, then confirmed by Ken Rosenthal. Then we waited, and waited. And finally Ryan Dempster's own Twitter account said this:

THERE IS NO TRADE dont know where this info came from!

— Dempster Foundation (@RyanDempsterFDN) July 23, 2012

It was still early in the afternoon, but Dempster walked into the Cubs clubhouse, put on his uniform, and threw a bullpen session. He stayed in the dugout the entire Cubs game, and comments from the Cubs manager seemed to indicate that all these trade reports were false.

But apparently there is a lot of misdirection going on, and possibly some folks were a little quicker to this story than all the parties involved would have liked. But news of the trade came from reliable sources and those sources say the trade is still on ... pending Dempster's approval.

So that's what today will be about: Waiting For Dempster. And if he does accept, then we can move on to being absolutely dejected by the ridiculous package of prospects we'll be sending to the Cubs for a 35-year old starter. I am prepared to destroy this trade ... unless Dempster destroys it first.

[UPDATE 10am]

Ugghh! I really would prefer he veto, if it's Randall Delgado going to the Cubs.

Sources say Ryan Dempster had given preliminary indications that he would accept a trade to the #braves from #cubs

— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) July 24, 2012

More to come...