Jon Marthaler bakes up a batch of delicious links just for you. Other times, you can find him here and here. Jon? --------------

Happy Saturday! Here's hoping that you've got a relaxing weekend planned, because this Friday, the World Cup begins. I'm guessing you're going to be so immersed in the world's biggest event that you'll hardly have a moment to yourself for the better part of June and early July. And if you're right now saying to yourself something along the lines of "I HATE SOCCER BLEURGH STUPID COMMIE PINKO HIPPIES," then I'm sorry, but you are wrong. I thought like you once, and then I watched the World Cup, and now I'm trying to work out how to watch all 63 matches. (There are 64, but I refuse to watch the third-place match, on principle.)

But that's not why you called, and so, on with the links!

*Deadspin has been having a themed "Blood Week," which has mostly been ridiculous, unless you're a fan of close-up photos of grotesque injuries. Still, though, it's also produced some of the best writing I've seen this year: Jake Bogoch's visit to hockey fight camp, and a twenty-three-year-old article about ferret legging by Donald Katz. Only one is new, but both are tremendous.

*John "Twins Geek" Bonnes did a series of posts, examining some of the research regarding pitch counts in baseball. His conclusion: Maybe Bert is right and pitch counts are stupid. Here's part one, part two, and part three.

*Not content with that, Bonnes also asks a question that most Twins fans have been asking: Why are the Twins suddenly completely flummoxed about how to deal with the disabled list?

*And finally: Danny Valencia, long held to be the future third-base solution with the Twins, is finally up with the big club and playing in his first big-league games. But at TwinsTarget.com, Bill Parker wants to know: Just how is Valencia that much different from Nick Punto?

That's enough for this week; do enjoy your weekend. Hopefully you aren't one of the poor Minnesotans that will this weekend experience the dreaded Rain At The Cabin, which is orders of magnitude worse than regular rain. Oh, weather, why must you taunt us so? We suffered through winter; is this not enough for you?

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[Proprietor note: Remember that we're hoping for more content today from Blogs With Balls. Our panel on "The Kings of All Media: Leveraging Podcasting and Video to Build a Media Megabrand" starts at 3:45 p.m.; if you would like to watch (except for you, Brandt. You have to pay extra), the live streaming info is right here.