Links to remember, 2013 season

My last “links to remember” post was just before the start of the season, so I have a whole season’s worth of material to choose from. Here are some links to this season’s articles or videos that I’d like to remember.

• Links to the Washington Post’s article, “Bryce Harper: A swing of beauty,” have been ubiquitous, so I’m sure many of you are tired of it. Nevertheless, I think it deserves to be remembered as a demonstration of how a newspaper can use the Internet, video, and in-depth analysis to tell a different kind of story than had been possible with old-fashioned print media.
• Of course, the ink on that story was barely dry (as they used to say in the days of old-fashioned newspapers) when Harper crashed into that wall in Los Angeles. Tom Boswell wrote about how Harper could be risking his career if he didn’t learn to play the game right. Stefan Flatsis of Slate wrote about the dangerous reluctance of the baseball establish to acknowledge their problem with concussions.
• While we’re talking about Bryce Harper, I have to add this article by Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs about how amazingly hard he hits the ball.
• Harper wasn’t the only interesting National this season. Grant Brisbee of Baseball Nation takes another look at Jayson Werth‘s contract and wonders what he would make if he were a free agent now. Maybe his contract isn’t such a joke after all. (Though, to be fair I should point out that in a more recent article, Brisbee included Werth in a list of the the seven worst contracts in baseball.)
• At the end of the Nationals’ disappointing season, David Schoenfield of ESPN’s SweetSpot blog wonders if the Nationals missed their window of opportunity.

Let’s go the video:

• This diving catch by Gio Gonzalez is fun to watch.
• Adam LaRoche made a great stop of a bad hop—not so fun to watch, but still pretty amazing.
• In July, Harper hit the first walk-off homer of his career, avoiding a sweep by the Pirates.
• The next night, Ryan Zimmerman hit another walk-off homer in the nightcap of a doubleheader against the Mets. That one was bit more memorable for me because I was at that game.
• Stephen Strasburg got his first career complete game, a 4-hit shutout, with some help from Zimmerman with this diving, game-ending play.
• The best play of the season? No doubt about this one—Denard Span‘s diving catch of Hunter Pence’s drive to save, and end a 6–5 win over the Giants.
• Reaching on an error is a link to remember? It is when the Braves have a one-run lead, Craig Kimbrel is on the mound, and Span’s grounder to shortstop drives in the tying run, as the winning run scores after Adrelton Simmons boots it. That game was an incredible roller coaster ride.