Saturday reading: Phil Hughes vs. Joba Chamberlain, Roy Halladay, Brett Gardner and Ben Affleck

The battle for the Yankees' fifth starter's job, between Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes, begun in earnest yesterday, Erik Boland wrote.

Of course, all it takes is one mild injury - to either one of these two guys, or to one of the four veteran starters - to change the dynamics of this story. That seems to happen often in these sort of situations. Like last year, when Nick Swisher began the season as a bench player and then Xavier Nady went down with a serious injury before the Yankees even played a game at their new ballpark.

--Here's my column on Roy Halladay.

--NaOH alerted us to both this interesting take on Brett Gardner and this injury database, which (not surprisingly) indicts the Mets and (a little surprisingly, given the Carl Pavano debacle) praises the Yankees.

And thanks to that second link, I found this column on Cole Hamels, challenging the notion that the lefty's poor 2009 resulted primarily from bad luck. It is interesting that Hamels himself has expressed such disappointment with his '09 season.

--Bob Tufts tipped us off to the news that Ben Affleck is moving forward on a long-discussed film project focusing on Mike Kekich's and Fritz Peterson's familiy swap. Affleck has owned the rights to this for years, and I had heard that Peterson, who is still married to Kekich's ex (not so the other way around), had been excited about the possibility of it. Matt Damon is supposedly also involved.

I'd go to see it, particularly if I were invited to a free preview.

I'll check in later from Steinbrenner Field.

UPDATE, 3:05 p.m.: As promised, greetings from Steinbrenner Field! Not as promised, no second post today. I'm experiencing computer turbulence, so I'm behind on my work. Besides, it was another (thankfully, for Yankees fans) quiet day in camp here. CC Sabathia threw his first bullpen session of the spring, and he looked fine.

The most interesting news of the day, undoubtedly, came wtih Ken Rosenthal's report that Carlos Delgado underwent another hip procedure. Wow. That explains Delgado's immobility in his Puerto Rico games.

Delgado's agent David Slaone told Rosenthal that Delgado will need four months to rehabilitate. It's natural to speculate whether this is it for Delgado, although he does have strong statistical incentive (he needs 27 more homers to reach 500) to return.

UPDATE, 3:39 p.m.: Rosenthal also broke the story that the Mets and Rod Barajas have agreed to terms on a major-league contract for about $1 million. I like this signing, given the few dollars involved. Barajas is an upgrade over Omir Santos, if not an immense one.

UPDATE, 4:26 p.m.: It's turning out to be a busy day. Here at Steinbrenner Field, the man himself, George Steinbrenner is in his luxury box, watching Tampa Prep play Berkeley Prep in a high school game. Steinbrenner's grandson, Robert Molloy, plays for Tampa Prep.

The Boss told the Associated Press and New York Post, "Feeling good," en route to his box. There's no need to bother him much anymore, now that the Yankees have conceded he's no longer running the team.

UPDATE, 6:10 p.m.: Looks like I picked the wrong day to try the "blog once and tack on as needed" approach. I can confirm Tim Brown's report that Johnny Damon has finally decided to sign with the Tigers, for one year and $8 million. That didn't ttake too long, right?

Meanwhile, I neglected to mention earlier that the Astros extended the contract of general manager Ed Wade, through 2012, in what can generously be described as a very, very questionable decison.