San Francisco Giants Link Dump, 4/11

Last night was the Giants' official night to say goodbye to Candlestick, so of course it was cold and windy and the Giants played stupidly and the players all dropped fly balls and by the end everyone couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. What more fitting tribute could there be?

Days at Candlestick not misspent youth
John Shea reminisces about Candlestick, illustrating its character through the magic of anecdotes. The best is obviously the one about sitting in the bleachers during the Dodger game because that story involves burning, but just heading over to Candlestick on a non-game day and messing around is pretty great too. He says you couldn't do that nowadays, but I bet if you headed to the Coliseum and claimed to be a plumber, they'd let you in no questions asked.

Another pinch-blogger: Hunter Pence!
This time, Hunter Pence fills in on the Brandon blog. To be considerate to us, he writes in English instead of his people's language, which is just drawings of tongues.

Air Bud, Defender of Freedom
You guys. YOU GUYS. There is a subtle 9/11 reference in Air Bud:Seventh Inning Fetch, which might bump it up above Spikes Back in my ranking of Air Bud movies. Golden Receiver and the original are clearly 1 and 2, because I have class, and World Pup was a little bit of a disappointment.

They never made Charlie Kaufman's archery script, Bullsarf, but it obviously would have been the fourth best in the series, because it wouldn't have had as much sports action as the others, even if Aronofsky would have piled on the existential angst.

Baseball Fans Call For More Goofy-As-Shit Batting Stances
I miss Craig Counsell. Well, really, I miss having someone in baseball who had Craig Counsell's batting stance. I mean, it helped that in addition to looking weird, he also never hit that well against the Giants. That was really the best of all possible worlds. There should be more players who hit badly against the Giants.

Scouting Children: Why MLB Has Teams Competing For 14-Year-Olds
This article starts out with descriptions of scouts being really excited about discovering 12-year-olds, and I just read that phrase eight times in a vain attempt to make it not seem creepy. But this is one of the side effects of the new CBA rules, which took money away from these pampered amateurs and finally give a little back to the beleaguered owners and major leaguers. It's about time major league sports organizations caught a break.

Spinning rims are just the latest from Juan Uribe, baseball's style maven
I want to see the walk-off between Juan Uribe and Andres Torres. I want to see it judged by Bill Neukom, wearing his swanky bowtie. And then I want Aubrey Huff to be declared the surprise winner. I don't see how this is too much to ask.