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For small-time, hopeless franchises like the Pittsburgh Pirates, thank goodness for the occasional feel-good rookie story like that of Zach Duke. And for those hapless teams trying to keep pace with the suddenly unbeatable Atlanta Braves, their occasional run-ins with tough lefty pitchers like Duke keep hope alive ... barely.

Duke carried a 24-inning shutout streak into today's game in Atlanta -- dating back to his major-league debut. He gave up a run, but he also dominated into the 9th inning of a 4-1 victory, as the Pirates avoided a 4-game sweep. Seeing that Duke was a 20th-round draft pick, one wonders if this 22-year-old is for real. He dominated in the minors, and his 4-0 start and sub-1.00 ERA demonstrates he might never go back.

Is he for real? If he is, how long before he's a Yankee?

"I don't think it's a fluke and I don't think it's something that's short term," Triple-A manager Trent Jewett insisted. "He has long-term abilities. His mechanics are good. You're not concerned with injury with him."

Here's the full story. Oh, and go here to read about today's performance.

A whopping 200 NCAA violations have been found to have occurred at Florida A&M since 1998, and that's just after the MEAC school's internal investigation. Football coach Billy Joe has already been fired, and FAMU imposed major scholarship reductions on itself. Can the school's athletics department -- already bleeding red ink -- survive this crisis? At the least, can it maintain its I-AA status in football and remain a league rival to N.C. A&T?

That planned move to I-A is looking like a distant pipedream now, isn't it?

Rafael Palmeiro's fall from grace this week -- well, that already came for the 2 or 3 people who actually read Jose Canseco's book and found him to be a credible author -- has created two basic storylines: 1) To what extent has this guy used steroids? (i.e. how much is he lying to cover himself?) And 2) What has he done to his Hall of Fame chances? How you answer that probably depends on how his steroid use registers on your "moral integrity meter," as a commenter at The Key Monk's blog suggests.

SI.com's Tom Verducci makes a key distinction between cheating (throwing spitballs, for example) and breaking the law (using illegal steroids, tax evasion, etc.). On my HofF ballot -- relax, I don't have one -- those who have committed crimes of this magnitude aren't eligible, making the moral-integrity quotient irrelevant.

That's the refrain they'll be singing in Urbana and Champaign if the NCAA has its way. Indian names (i.e. Illini) and mascots (i.e. the Chief) have been banned from the postseason by the NCAA, a move that will go a long way toward forcing schools to change longstanding names deemed offensive to Native Americans.

Think about it: These nicknames can't appear on uniforms in the postseason, and schools with these nicknames can't host postseason NCAA events. That means Illinois can't host NCAA gymnastics, as they apparently have in the past. And Florida State's Seminoles can't host baseball regionals, as they do often. And what will Dee Brown wear in March? Well, "Illinois" doesn't offend anyone, as far as I know, so maybe he'll be fine.

Those two schools' mascots are considered "hostile and abusive" -- which seems a bit harsh to N&R summer intern Lindsey Reu, an Illinois grad who does count herself in the anti-Illiniwek camp -- along with 16 other schools not named in the AP story. UNC Pembroke's Braves are exempted from sanctions because of the school's history and 20 percent-plus enrollment of Native Americans.

Dangerous minds come together to talk steroids, pucks and fantasy football as we close out the week at RadioFreeSports. The crying you might hear toward the end is not Rob after being zinged by Jim Young. It's actually Jim's daughter, Julia, weighing in from the Durham bureau.

This from MSN Sports Net on West Virginia football recruit Marquis Melvin of Whiteville, NC:

In the past, (Rich) Rodriguez has lost players to homesickness and having a change of heart, but this year was the first time he lost a player to the music industry. Freshmen defensive back Marquis Melvin notified the coaching staff Friday night that he wasn’t going to join the program.

"I've been coaching college for 21 years and head coach for 13 and this is the first time I've lost one to a music contract," said Rodriguez. "We knew he was a singer but we didn't know he was that good. If we see him on American Idol or something we'll know what happened. I was hoping he'd hang around for the annual Gong Show that we do, but now we’ll have to wait for the TV appearance."

Me: It's just another sad example of a gospel singer turning pro early, jumping straight from high school to the big leagues. I doubt he's ready. And college choirs obviously suffer when singers with the talent of Marquis Melvin, who also considered going to N.C. State like another Marcus Melvin, skip school altogether. When is the music industry going to follow the NBA's lead and invoke a much-needed 19-year-old draft-eligibility rule?

Let me preface this by saying, generally, I don't like mascots at sporting events. They're basically a needless distraction from the game, like cheerleaders and dizzy-bat contests. I realize I'll probably feel differently when I have kids.

That being said, I've got to give it up to the Phillie Phanatic for his rightful induction into the new Mascot Hall of Fame. Of course, how could he not get in? Dave Raymond, the first Phanatic, is running this hall. I grew up with the Phillies and now, just as when I was an easy-to-please 10-year-old, find his antics genuinely funny (even with a new guy in the costume).

Also entering this goofball Hall of Fame were the San Diego Chicken (not so great, but a mascot original) and the Phoenix Suns Gorilla, who probably got in for his dunking ability.

Who got unfairly snubbed? Mickey Mouse? Nah. Ronald McDonald? Overrated. Harvey Hound, the Calgary Flames dog who had his tongue famously snatched by Oilers coach Craig MacTavish? Maybe next year.

The two I'd like to see get in: Hoops, the former Washington Bullets mascot who was ejected from an NBA game by thin-skinned ref Steve Javie, and Youppi! -- Le Grand Orange -- who rattled around cavernous Stade Olympique all those years for the Expos. He didn't head to Washington with the Nationals. So, s'il vous plait, Hall voters: throw Quebec a bone, induct Youppi!

While hard to side against the NCAA's intentions, David Teel of the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press does a nice job of spelling out how Myles Brand et al bungled their efforts to banish offensive Native American mascots from the college arena.

Seems this is happening a lot in the political arena, too. Here, the NCAA more or less assumed Seminole Indians would be -- or should be -- offended by Florida State's mascot and ignored the existing, easy-to-locate evidence to the contrary.

As Teel writes:

More embarrassing was the NCAA's ignorance of how Seminole Indians view Florida State's nickname and mascot. The university has a long-standing and mutually profitable relationship with its home-state Seminoles, but in rebuking Florida State, the NCAA's vice president for diversity and inclusion, Charlotte Westerhaus, said "other Seminole tribes are not supportive."

Well. The other Seminole tribe resides in Oklahoma, and last month its General Council rejected 18-2 a resolution condemning Florida State's use of Seminoles.

This rather salient fact, discovered by Florida reporters in about five minutes, escaped the finger-on-the-pulse NCAA, specifically the Executive Committee and the Minority Opportunities and Issues Committee.

***

There are some genuinely offensive mascots out there, i.e. the Washington Redskins. As ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski puts it on his list of 99 Imperfect Things in the sports world, coming in at No. 24:

The Washington Redskins. Has Daniel Snyder ever spoken to an actual American Indian about that nickname?

My question: Has the NCAA?

Oh, and an interesting take on the NCAA's holier-than-thou hypocrisy from collegeRPI.com guru Jerry Palm:

Since this is only in effect for NCAA championship events, can we assume that the NCAA will no longer enter into sponsorship agreements for those events with companies that use hostile and abusive racial/ethnic/national origin names and/or logos?

If you watched the NCAA men's basketball tournament, and I'm pretty sure you did, you saw roughly 1,425,618 ads for Pontiac, which is a major corporate sponsor of the tournament. Pontiac was an Indian chief who led raids on Ohio Valley settlers during the days of the French and Indian War and the company logo is an arrowhead. If it were a member institution and not a company, it would certainly be in violation of this policy. Now, we have a situation where CMU could play Wichita State in a men's basketball tournament game and "Chippewas" has to be covered, but "Wichita" (another Indian tribe name) does not and Pontiac arrowheads are on display everywhere.

Jim Young joins us in the studio this week in Radio Free Sports. Jim and fellow News & Record sports writers Jeff Carlton and Rob Daniels reveal their first-ballot selections for the Mascot Hall of Fame, which inducted its first class this week. Not that they were asked to. Why should the Expos’ Youppi! get some consideration? Who are the best and worst of college mascots? We have the answers. We also tell you why the Padres are proof baseball shouldn’t allow sub-.500 teams to make the playoffs and debate whether the NHL should be so gung-ho in sending its players and coaches to the Olympics in the middle of hockey season.

Give it a listen and feel free to blog your mascot favorites. And forgive us for any over-the-top Jeffrey Dahmer references you might hear.

That's the time I spent watching ... a televised college football practice. Mind you, I was eating at the time, but still that's no excuse.

ESPN, apparently unable to find a World's Strongest Man contest to fill the 1-2 p.m. Friday time slot, instead, opted to televise an LSU football practice.

This raised all sorts of questions in my mind.

First, why would LSU consent to do something like that? You'd have to pluck out all of Chuck Amato's eyebrow hairs before he'd let someone televise his practice on national television. I'm assuming the Tigers ran a very vanilla practice, but since coaches view each preseason session as a precious commodity, I'm still surprised coach Les Miles was willing to give ESPN the go-ahead.

Two, was this thing live? I'd be stunned if it was. And if not, how did the editing work? If - just for example - Miles went ballistic and spent five minutes cursing out his starting QB Jamarcus Russell, would ESPN run it anyway? Or would they bow to LSU's wishes and remove that little bit? Or did LSU tell ESPN, look you can tape our Oklahoma drill, but not the part where we explain the intricacies of our passing game?

Third, who would want to watch this? Trust me, unless you're deeply involved in a football practice, it's very, very boring to watch. Very.

But hey, if you don't believe me, tune in next Wednesday at 1 p.m., when ESPN visits an Ohio State practice.

Every time I think I have a grasp on just how powerful ESPN is in college sports, they raise the bar another notch.

Jeff White of the Richmond Times-Dispatch offers a promising nugget on former Ragsdale High receiver Emmanuel Byers, whose career at Virginia so far has been underwhelming:

FRESH START: After redshirting in 2003, wide receiver Emmanuel Byers played in Virginia's first three games last season, catching four passes (for 31 yards) and completing one, for 32 yards to wideout Michael McGrew.

And then . . . nothing. Byers, apparently out of favor with his coaches, didn't play in the final nine games, and there was little reason to believe he'd have a significant role in U.Va.'s offense this season. But the 5-9 191-pounder has been one of the team's top performers during training camp and figures to earn a spot in the rotation at receiver.

"His whole game has progressed," U.Va. coach Al Groh said. "It probably would be unfair to Emmanuel to say that it's one thing or the other, but he's a more confident, more active and certainly more productive player. Amongst the players who are having a very good camp, Emmanuel is very much one of them."

As a sportswriter people are always coming up to me and asking me questions like:

"Jim, what's former scrub NFL quarterback Gary Hogeboom up to these days?"

For years, I had no answer. Until now.

Gary Hogeboom, who somehow managed to survive the final cut of training camp for 10 years, will now put those skills to use on this season's edition of Survivor.

What's harder? Surviving the jungles of Guatemala or convincing the coach that you deserve a roster spot despite career numbers (49 TDs, 60 ints) that would make Browning Nagle cringe?

Now that I think about it, Hogeboom's got to be the favorite here.

First, Virginia gives Al Groh a contract extension worth $1.7 million a year. Not to be outdone, Virginia Tech awarded Frank Beamer $2 mil in an extension today. That's better than what two-time national champion Pete Carroll makes at USC. But, hey, gotta keep up with the competition, eh? We haven't seen this kind of deficit spending since Ronald Reagan helped drive communism out of business in the USSR in the '80s.

Actually, this tit-for-tat salary escalation reminds me even more of the petty battle my college paper had with our rival. The day after we lifted our daily circulation to 14,000, they came in at 14,001. For what it's worth, my paper is still going strong; the other is dead.

Just about everyone who scored a point in North Carolina's national-championship run will be playing in the so-called World's Greatest Alumni Game at the Dean Dome Saturday (7 p.m., go to tarheelblue.com for tickets). That's to be expected. Just as it's no surprise other former Tar Heels like Greensboro's own Brendan Haywood, Joseph Forte and Jason Capel are playing.

But J.R. Smith? Ranzino Smith and Kenny Smith, sure. J.R. Reid, you bet. But I don't recall ever seeing J.R. Smith in a Tar Heel uniform. Do UNC fans really want to see a guy who spurned Roy Williams' offer to go straight from high school to the NBA draft? (His New Orleans Hornets teammate Chris Paul is expected to play, too. See here for the entire roster of expected participants.)

Note also that new Northeast Guilford coach Curtis Hunter and former Greensboro College coach Rusty LaRue (NW Guilford, Wake) are playing, too. Oh, and Tony Moore. Remember him?

On this week's edition of Radio Free Sports, News & Record colleagues Jim Young, Jeff Carlton and Rob Daniels explain why Dodgers pitcher Brad Penny observed this week that baseball will give you a 10-game suspension for using steroids, and six games for drinking milk. Also, the performance-enhancing drug EPO is at the center of a controversy that, thanks to a French sports publication's report this week, continues to hound 7-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong. Is this a genuine "Gotcha" situation? Or just a bitter nation that can't win its own bike race?

Five days before Florida State's season-opener against Miami, Bobby Bowden has finally named his starting quarterback, though he says he's been leaning toward Drew Weatherford, over Xavier Lee, for a while. Of course, when Wyatt Sexton was diagnosed with Lyme disease, it threw the position into a bit of disarray. Now, Bowden suggests Lee might be his closer ... or have a chance to win the starting job as the season goes on.

FSU hasn't had a consistent performer at QB in several years. It should be interesting to see how this plays out. I suspect it will go a long way toward deciding whether the Seminoles are playing for an ACC title in Jacksonville in early December.

In the meantime, N.C. A&T still hasn't decided on its starting quarterback for the Aggie-Eagle Classic, which, like the Miami-FSU game, will be played on Labor Day. Read Rob Daniels' story on that situation tomorrow in the News & Record.

It sure is. You may have caught sight of Parker doing quite while during the Pittsburgh Steelers' preseason. Now the reports are out that Parker will be the Steelers' opening game starter, thanks to injuries to Duce Staley and Jerome Bettis.

Hard to believe, isn't it, that the guy who could barely get off the bench to help out an anemic UNC rushing attack at the time is now worthy of a starting job in the NFL? According to this article, part of Parker's problems at UNC stemmed from an unwillingness to put on extra weight so he could do more running between the tackles.

Whatever the case, State fans are naturally having a field day with this one on the message boards, using it to take yet another round of jabs at John Bunting. Adding to their glee is the fact that Parker's new coach, Bill Cowher, is a State alum.