When he played on the freshman team at Foothill High School in Southern California, Hughes was the human equivalent of the strip at the top of the screen during baseball television broadcasts. His coaches would lean on the rail of the dugout and ask questions over their shoulders. "What did this guy do the last time up? Where's the play on a fly to right? Can this guy hit the breaking ball?" And Hughes would simply call out the answers, never taking his eyes from the field. He knew the scouting report on the next day's hitters, sure, but he also knew the exact cutoff machinations of the first and third basemen on a ball hit to the outfield.

Why?

"I don't really know," his father, Phil Sr., said. "He's just always been that way. He doesn't smile during games. It's just not the way he works. It's not the way he's ever worked."