Sport shorts

First, let's congratulate Tomas Kopecky, whose goal with less than half the 3rd period to go gives the Blackhawks a 6-5 win in game one over those disgusting, black-hearted Flyers. I almost missed it, busy with last night's rant until just before the happy event. The 28-year-old Kopecky, a Slovak who has spent most of his playing career in the Detroit organization, was a healthy scratch for several of this year's cup run. Probably not so much anymore.

Second, I think that the A's can safely release Eric Chavez now, we have someone else to fill the "perform a yearly cameo and take a seat in the trainer's room" slot. To wit:

Duchscherer to undergo surgery: The Oakland A's announced Saturday that Justin Duchscherer will undergo season-ending surgery on his left hip. "[Duchscherer] got through it, but didn't feel well doing it," general manager David Forst told MLB.com. "He finally saw another doctor down there, and it was just confirmed that it probably wasn't going to hold up. So that's when he decided to go ahead and shut it down." (Updated 05/29/2010).

Yes, this is one of our two starters who played not at all last season, and was 2-1 in a measly 28 innings this year. But he may have competition: Coco Crisp managed to play 2 or three games before returning to the DL last week.

"Every injury is a different situation. The good news with this one it isn't a real long one, so he'll be back," manager Bob Geren said before the A's faced the Baltimore Orioles. "He's a very good player; he does a lot of things to help a team win. That's obviously why we signed him."

What exactly does a player who plays 2 games in two months do to help a team win? I don't know, but obviously we need more guys like Chavez, Justin, and Coco; we are in first by a half game over Texas after all. (Hey, isn't Texas that team that just filed for bankruptcy? Apparently another alternate path to success.)

Finally, congrats to Ray Halladay, who had an 11-strikeout perfect game last night against Florida, just 20 days after the perfecto by Dallas Braden (one of those Oakland players that selfishly hurts his team by actually showing up in uniform to games and playing). This breaks the mark for shortest interval between perfect games, set by the 1 year, 2 months, 18 days between the pair by Jim Bunning of the Phillies against the God-awful "Amazing Mets" on June 21, 1964, and Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers and his gem against the Cubbies on Sept. 9, 1965.