Phil Hughes Is Here to Stay

Since giving up a two-run home run to Kevin Youkilis in Boston on June 10, Phil Hughes has been untouchable. In 13 appearances, he's held opposing teams scoreless over 19 innings, allowing only 9 hits and 3 walks, while racking up 24 strikeouts. As a reliever, Hughes is sporting an anemic 0.84 ERA, and his 19-inning scoreless streak is, remarkably, only four innings off Mariano Rivera's 2005 23-inning scoreless streak, the second longest streak of Rivera's Hall of Fame career. I wasn't the only one to foresee Hughes' emerging dominance. 

The kid's figured out how to dominate at the Major League level, primarily out of the pen, in much the same way David Cone starred in relief for the Mets in 1987, before anchoring the rotation a year later, in 1988. In fact, Cone's mentioned this parallel a number of times on the YES broadcast this year, because, I think, he sees in Hughes what I see in him: a top of the line starter in the Major Leagues. Like Joba, Hughes will eventually be a key contributor to the Yankees' revamped starting rotation. After a disastrous 2008 season, Hughes is showing why Cashman refused to include him in a potential deal for Johan Santana, and why he won't be sent to Toronto as part of an MLB-ready package for Roy Halladay. Ladies and gentlemen, Phil Hughes is here to stay.  

KKK Knights Vs. Hebrew Stars

Via Jeffrey Goldberg, comes the most interesting box score you'll ever see. I'd imagine this particular rivalry makes the Yankees-Red Sox pairing look like a match up of the two worst teams in a Sunday softball league.

For more information about the game, including details about one famous Star, take a look over here.  

Toney Douglas

Toney Douglas, the 29th overall pick in this year's NBA Draft, is making quite the name for himself in Las Vegas this summer. Douglas, a 6-6' combo guard out of Florida State, has been running the point for the Knicks in the team's first two Summer League games. So far, he's racked up 21 total assists, while only turning over the ball twice. That's practically an 11:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Ridiculous. Douglas, whose draft rights were purchased by the Knicks on Draft Night, still hasn't found his shooting stroke, but Knicks coaches and league scouts are raving about his ability to run the floor, manage a game, create shots for his teammates and, best of all, defend the ball. I can get behind that, even after only two games. 

Team Borat

Forgive me for not realizing this sooner, but Lance Armstrong, a normally fierce defender of his own brand, is in bed with a pretty shady Kazakh sponsor for the 2009 Tour de France, which just reached the half-way point. "The New Republic's" David Roth has the details:

In place of the relatively wholesome U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel jerseys he wore during his previous wins, Armstrong is currently racing in the blue-and-yellow of the Astana Cycling Team. Which means that one of America's last golden boys is a walking (or riding) advertisement for the Kazakh government. 

[SNIP]

Astana rose from the ashes of the risibly corrupt Liberty Seguros Cycling Team, which disbanded in 2006 when manager Manolo Saiz was caught in the anti-doping sting Operacion Puerto. Liberty Seguros' star racer, Kazakh cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov and then-Prime Minister Akhmetov cobbled together some Kazakh sponsors and Astana was born. Vinokourov and Kazakh teammate Andrei Kashechkin promptly tested positive for blood doping, and Astana was kicked out of the 2007 Tour de France and banned in '08. Bruyneel was hired shortly thereafter in an attempt to re-brand the team and largely cleaned house, but Armstrong's current Astana teammate Andreas Kloeden has been dogged by doping rumors for years and Astana hasn't shaken its rep. "There's a high bar for hijinks in this sport," Lindsey says. "But Astana is a different creature than any cycling has seen in 50 years."

As Roth points out, the only reason Armstrong is with Astana is because his longtime manager, Johan Bruynell, is under contract with them, and there's nothing wrong, illegal or untoward about Armstrong's affiliation with the state-owned enterprise. It's just kind of goofy, like Borat himself or, for that matter, grown men in spandex.  

Cooperstown Confidential

Over at The Second Pass, a fantastic website about books that's rightfully starting to get a ton of attention, my friend John reviews Zev Chafets' Cooperstown Confidential, an almost total take down of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. As is his wont, John gets right to the heart of the matter: 

Zev Chafets’ Cooperstown Confidential, a slender book that serves as both a revisionist history of the Hall and a polemic in favor of socially liberal admission policies (Pete Rose and steroids users will rejoice if Chafets has any impact on voting patterns), manages to be earnest and playful, though not in the traditional ways described above. Earnest because it spends more time addressing issues like racism and commercialism than whether Bert Blyleven deserves a plaque; and playful because it gleefully spits in the face of anyone who thinks the Hall’s (very thin) Puritanical sheen is anything but a “public relations sham.”

I read a very early version of Chafets' excellent and provocative book, and I'm in total agreement with John. Like the College of Cardinals or the U.S. House of Representatives, the Baseball Hall of Fame is made up of equal parts legends, qualified representatives, quacks, criminals and, yes, cheats. That the Hall of Fame continues to hold itself up as a model of constancy, integrity, even infallibility, is nothing more than clever marketing. Everybody's just selling soap. Chafets, a former columnist for New York's "Daily News," is right to call the Hall out on their spotty history of institutional hypocrisy. His book is worth picking up. 

Obama Owns the Room

Sure, his first pitch left a lot to be desired, but Obama's trips into each team's respective clubhouses more than made up for his on-the-mound miscue. I've said it before: Obama is always, without question, the coolest guy in the room. He talked trash to Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard, called Derek Jeter old, and basically ordered Mark Buehrle, the lone representative from Obama's favorite team, the White Sox, to announce his presence with authority, or something like that. Oh, and he made Ichiro blush like a 1960s schoolgirl meeting the Beatles. In fairness, though, I'm pretty sure that's exactly how I would react, too. 

Copa N.Y.C.

Believe it or not, in about two weeks, New York City will host a 16-team world soccer tournament. Copa N.Y.C., a sort of mini-World Cup, is made up of national teams drawn from the Metropolitan area's diverse cultural and ethnic communities. Each team, according to Copa N.Y.C.'s website, consists of a team president, coaches, and 25 players who can at least claim some heritage to their country they're representing. 

The 16 teams-- the United States, England, Ireland, France, Ghana, Korea, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Greece, Trinidad & Tobago, Cyprus, Albania, Liberia, Jamaica and Ecuador-- have been split into four groups. The top two finishers from each group advance to the next round. For those scoring at home, the United Sates is in Group C with Cyprus, Argentina and Liberia. First round games are 50 minutes long, while the semifinals, quarterfinals and finals are all 90 minutes. 

The first round kicks off July 25 at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. Semifinals and finals are scheduled for the following week at the Metropolitan Oval in Maspeth, also in Queens. This should be fun. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Ghana comes out of Group B, and wins it all.