THE SIDELINES : McMichael Asks Trade to Dallas

Bears defensive tackle Steve McMichael, miffed that the team won’t renegotiate his contract, has asked to be traded to the Dallas Cowboys.

“If I’m not appreciated, I don’t want to play for the McCaskeys anymore,” the two-time Pro Bowler said Monday in reference to the family that owns the team. “Am I going down a one-way street here?”

McMichael, who said he preferred to go to Dallas, earns less money than seven of his teammates on defense. But McMichael’s agent, Larry Bales, said the defensive tackle was the Bears’ best defensive player according to the coaches’ grading system.

Originally, Bales asked the Bears to leave McMichael unprotected in the Plan B pool, but the Bears refused.

Last fall the Bears gave McMichael, who entered the second year of a three-year agreement, a one-year extension worth $650,000 and they added incentive clauses for the 1989 and 1990 seasons but refused to better his 1989 and 1990 base salaries of $500,000 per year.