Tuesday Afternoon Hodge Podge

• Go Hog Go. Former Razorback and Benton native Cliff Lee will have the eyes of the baseball world upon him this evening, when he will be the starting pitcher for the American League in one of the sporting world’s most boring events: the Major League All-Star Game. The Cleveland Indian southpaw sports an impressive 12-2 record (which is even more impressive when you consider his team has a decidedly unimpressive 41-53 record) and a nifty 2.31 ERA. If history holds, Lee won’t pitch more than two innings, meaning he will likely already be on a plane home by the time the game hits the late innings (we hear All-Stars aren’t big on sticking around once they’ve been removed from the game). Here’s wishing Cliff the best of luck.

• Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes. Courtesy of the inimitable Deadspin, we came across this Vegas Insider.com listing of teams’ odds of winning the 2009 BCS National Championship Game. The team with the best chance? Southern California, with odds of 3 to 1. Florida has the next-best chance, the site says, with odds of 5 to 1. And how ’bout the Hogs … well, how ’bout odds of 100 to 1? Perhaps it’s best to hold off on buying those plane tickets to Miami for now.

• Speaking of Vegas … The Razorbloggers have a nice piece on Sonny Weems’ impressive NBA Summer League debut in the desert.

• Prediction Time. The staff at ArkansasSports360.com has released a batch of predictions for the upcoming SEC football season. One of the highlights: “Ole Miss and Houston Nutt set the world afire for two months, then fold up like a cheap pup tent in November and end season with a one-point loss to Mississippi State.”

• “To An Athlete Dying Old.” That’s the title of a touching tribute to former Razorback footballer Wayne Jackson penned by the Arkansas Times’ Derek Jenkins and published on his “A Boy Named Sooie” blog. Jackson died earlier this month. To read the tribute, just click here.