Happy birthday, Phil Hughes!

Ah, to be 26 again!

If I was 26 years old again, I probably wouldn’t be dealing with this achy back, unless I was a professional athlete like Phil Hughes. I do consider myself a professional spinner, or at least an obsessed one. But truth be told, I’m in much better health in my 30s than I was in my 20s. I can only hope for Phil’s sake and the New York Yankees that his health problems are behind him too.

Hughes seems to have righted himself after losing much of the 2011 baseball season to a baffling arm injury and getting off to a rough start in 2012. His last outing aside, Hughes has been on quite a roll in the month of June, giving up only 4 runs in three victories, including that masterful performance against the Detroit Tigers. My birthday wish for Hughes, and probably his wish for himself, is that the rest of the year looks more like those three starts in the middle of the month than his last one.

Happy Birthday, Phil!