The Information

A Rookie for the Ages

Astros centerfielder Hunter Pence leads all rookies who qualify for the batting title in average, slugging, doubles and triples, but it's not just among his contemporaries that he shines. Pence , 24, is putting together one of the most impressive debut seasons in big league history.

Pence is on pace for the lowest plate appearances per extra base hit ratio of any rookie since 1901 (minimum 40 extra base hits)
[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

Pence is on pace to have the highest batting average of any NL rookie in the expansion era. These are the top rookies averages since 1961 (minimum 3.1 PA per team's games)
[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

As of Saturday, Pence was leading the NL in batting average. No rookie has won an NL batting title, and since 1901 only 10 have finished in the top three.
[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

What's the deal with...

The World Championship of American Football?

IF YOU THOUGHT the Super Bowl determined football's world champion, think again. Every four years the IFAF—the sport's international governing body—holds a tournament to crown the planet's best national team. It doesn't yet have the cachet of, say, soccer's World Cup, so the rosters aren't loaded with recognizable names. This year the U.S. , which didn't even bother playing in the first two tournaments, assembled a 45-player team of players from schools ranging from Division I Arizona to Division III Christopher Newport. The players, who competed gratis, began training camp under former Chiefs coach John Mackovic on June 20 in San Jose . They then traveled to Kawasaki , Japan , where they won their first two games in the tournament, 77-0 over South Korea and 33-7 against Germany . In Sunday's championship game the hosts gave the Yanks all they could handle, but the U.S. won 23-20 in double overtime in front of a crowd of 10,231.

COX COUNTDOWN: 1

LIVID
HAPPY

Braves manager Bobby Cox , 66, has been tossed 131 times in his 26 years as a major league manager. He needs just one more ejection to break the record set by Hall of Famer John McGraw . How close is the volcanic veteran to his next eruption? SI 's Coxometer tells all.

How happy is Cox these days? When pitcher Wil Ledezma failed to make it back to the team after a trip to his home in Venezuela because of what Braves G.M. John Schuerholz called a "washing incident" (Ledezma's passport and visa got mixed in with his laundry, which rendered them unusable), the normally crusty skipper just let it slide. "You can't blame him," Cox said. "You'd go too if it was your home. To get back even for one day is big." Why so lax? Despite being hampered by slumps, injuries and now AWOL relievers, the Braves have pulled within a game-and-a-half of the first place Mets, leaving Cox little to get upset about. He hasn't been tossed since June 23.