Odds and ends

• A welcome battle between Cuba and the United States: in baseball, in Rio today, for the gold in the Pan American games.

• The Braves’ Yunel Escobar’s Mom joins him in America; a sweet story from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

• Since we’re talking baseball, add the base-stealing El Duque Hernandez (7 IP, 4K, 1B, SB Tuesday vs. San Diego) to the list of pitchers the Yankees wish they had never traded.

• Attention all you “acolytes” of Havana, there’s a difference between an embargo and a blockade. Frank Calzon explains.