Hunt and Peck: Links of the Week

Mark Mulder hurries off the bus, thankful to have survived his brief run in with Ty Wigginton unscathed. The jelly... it was everywhere. He slowly begins to trudge forward when in the distance he sees the faint outline of a man running towards him. The bus starts to roll away.

"STOP THE BUS!" the man yells.

Mulder turns toward the bus to help the man, but in his condition, could do nothing but watch the bus accelerate and drive away as he hobbled toward it. He turns back to face the man who has already sunk to his knees in exasperation and exhaustion. He buries his head in his hands in what appears to be an attempt to hide his misery.

"You can always catch the next one," Mark suggests.

"There won't be a next one," Rick Ankiel states flatly, "I have already used my last chance." - Sports on Earth (there are some great videos in this article, too); Viva el Birdos; Deadspin; Aaron Miles' Fastball; Hardball Talk

Other Things Going on in Baseball...

• In other sad news, Dr. Frank Jobe, the first doctor to perform Tommy John surgery , passed away Thursday at the age of 88. - ABC News
• Moving on to a little bit happier things (unless you are a Reds fan), here is a list of the offseason winners and losers, although I am still not convinced that if there are 15 winners there are truly any winners at all. - CBS Sports
• This past week was Major League Baseball's first attempt with the new replay system enacted. Here are a few plays that were upheld using these new rules. - MLB
• When you are Tommy Lasorda, you get to pretty much do what you want. - Cut4
• Joe Maddon is the coolest person ever. At least top five. I kind of wish he was my dad (except my current father is awesome and I would never want to replace him, of course! Happy 45th birthday, Dad!) - Cut4
• Every team goes through a time where things seem like they couldn't get any better. Maybe that was over 100 years ago for some, but it still exists. - Sports on Earth
• Do players perform better in the year before they hit free agency? Beyond the Box Score investigates. - Beyond the Box Score
• In an attempt to more accurately measure fielding data, there is now a system that measures data based on the difficulty of the play. I cannot really explain it, so I will let you see for yourself. - Fangraphs
• This may not be Major League Baseball, but it is still a great moment, nonetheless. - Cut4
• Thanks goes to flood for clueing me in to this link. This is yet another article about runs that could be saved by employing defensive shifts. - Beyond the Box Score
• Some reporter asked Albert Pujols if he thought he could put up numbers like Mike Trout. Yeah, it went over about as well as you would think.Thanks, guayzimi, for the link! - Hardball Talk
• Ken Griffey (happy now, Joe?) Jr. does an interview, and apparently it isn't good. - SBNation
• Puig, Trout, replay, play at the plate... this video has everything. - SBNation

What the Cardinals are Up To...