As this guy gets closer to the majors there’s more written about his unique situation. Here’s a piece by the New York Times concerning R.A. Dickey, who recently came to the Mariners via Rule 5. His story is incredible.

Instead, Dickey slipped on his Seattle Mariners uniform Monday, stepped on a bullpen pitcher’s mound and made his pitching arm do something it should not be able to do — throw a baseball. In an age when more and more pitchers have ugly scars crawling up their elbows, where surgeons’ scalpels have replaced their ulnar collateral ligaments in what is known as Tommy John surgery, Dickey does not need to worry about strains or painful pops.

He does not have an ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. None. Dickey either was born without one, or the tissue simply disintegrated when he was a teenager.

Prior to the discovery Dickey was a highly touted pitcher. He appeared on the cover of Baseball America in 1996 alongside Kris Benson, Billy Koch, Seth Greisinger and Braden Looper as members of the US Olympic team.

Dickey was ready to accept the Rangers’ $810,000 bonus offer when a team physician picked up the magazine and noticed Dickey’s right arm hanging somewhat awkwardly at his side. The doctor recommended that the team examine him further, leading to the bizarre discovery that Dickey not only had an elbow issue, he had no ulnar collateral ligament, the primary tissue that stabilizes the joint. The Rangers pulled their offer and wound up offering him $75,000, more out of guilt than confidence in his future.

But now, at age 33, he’s a legitimate possibility to reach the majors this year.

Dickey’s knuckleball danced through the Pacific Coast League last year, when as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers’ Class AAA farm team in Nashville he went 13-6 with a 3.72 earned run average. (He went 9-2 with a 2.51 E.R.A. in his final 15 starts as the pitch started to become particularly effective.) The Minnesota Twins signed him in November, but he was soon snapped up by the Mariners in the Rule 5 draft, meaning Seattle must keep him on its 25-man roster all season or offer him back to Minnesota.