The Baker Bowl Is Burning: Cole Hamels Eats Lightning and Craps Thunder

Here's a brief list of supposed Phillies "aces" since Curt Schilling was traded:

Robert Person (out of baseball)
Randy Wolf (Tommy John surgery)
Kevin Millwood (50-45, 4.15 ERA since 2003)
Vicente Padilla (banished to Texas with Millwood)
Brett Myers (on DL, trying to salvage career in the bullpen)

While most of these guys were at least decent, none was a true "stopper"--the cool, confident, dynamic pitcher who you believed could stop his team's four-game losing streak (and look like an actual athlete out there on the mound). Finally, the Phils have found an answer:

Cole Freaking Hamels. Second complete game of the year. National League-leading eighth win. Second most strikeouts in the majors, trailing Jake Peavy (who I hear is pretty decent himself) by one.

And much how the Ryan Howard bandwagon took off last year, the Robo-Lefty is gaining a considerable cult following of his own. Cole Hamels Facts are a spin on all those intentionally ridiculous "Chuck Norris Facts" that have been beaten to death for the last couple years. A typical sampling:

Jack Bauer calls Cole Hamels for advice.
When Cole Hamels passes "Go", he collects $400.
Cole puts his pants on 2 legs at a time.
Cole Hamels isn't left-handed, he's bored.
Cole Hamels walks up to Gino's, orders a cheesesteak witout in Spanish, and they still serve him.
One time Cole Hamels spent 40 days in the desert. To survive, he ate whole camels.

There are almost of thousand of these to check out if you are so inclined. Be forewarned: they are all user-submitted, the majority of them suck, and it looks like they aren't screened before being posted ("Cole Hamels once punched a man so hard that he broke his multi-million dollar pitching hand and then lied to the cops about the incident").

Alas, Cole's only human, no matter how much I want to believe these "facts." But I'm still holding out hope that my personal favorite is true: