NEW YORK -- Phil Hughes was not even 3 years old when the movie "Major League" was released, but now the Yankees right-hander has something in common with Charlie Sheen's fictional Rick Vaughn character.
Hughes visited a Connecticut optometrist on Friday and was found to be "slightly nearsighted," he said, and was issued a prescription for glasses. Hughes could be sidelined until July with a stress fracture in his ninth rib, but when he eventually returns, he'll do so wearing a new pair of specs.
"I'll look like I went to college," Hughes said.
The 21-year-old Hughes was a first-round selection of the Yankees in the 2004 First-Year Player Draft out of Foothill High School in Santa Ana, Calif. The optometrist appointment was made after Hughes struggled to pick up signs from Chris Stewart in his most recent start, on Tuesday, before going on the disabled list, crossing up his catcher and throwing two wild pitches.
"We can't continue to go with what what we're doing, because that doesn't work," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "Unless we get all day games."
Hughes said that he has always had some problems pitching in night games, with the Yankee Stadium lights particularly troublesome.
Hughes finds pitching with contact lenses annoying and believes that undergoing Lasik surgery would not help, so he said he will pick out a pair of sports glasses much like the ones the Tigers' Nate Robertson wore to the mound on Thursday at New York.
In the 1989 movie, Sheen's Vaughn is experiencing a streak of wildness and is about to be sent to the Minor Leagues when his manager realizes that his star rookie can't see the strike zone. A quick trip to the eye doctor fixes everything for the Tribe right-hander, and the parallel was not lost on Hughes.
"Wild Thing? With the big skull in the middle," he said, grinning.
