San Francisco Giants Link Dump, 8/21

In case you didn't see it, the Giants did the ice bucket challenge, and then they challenged the MLB front office, who also did it, and I think this trend is kinda fun, but I still can't really wait for it to end. Excelsior!

Is Rusney Castillo the next international free-agent gem?
YES. YES HE IS. UNLESS THE GIANTS DON'T GET HIM IN WHICH CASE NO. THESE ARE MY PRINCIPLES AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE THEM, I HAVE OTHERS.

Forfeits and Successfully Protested Games in Major League Baseball
Were you wondering if the Giants had ever successfully protested a game before? Well they did, way back in 1943. Now, this article doesn't mention the onions they were certainly wearing on their belts, as that was the style at the time, but it goes into detail about the incompetence that led to the protest, as home plate umpire Beans Reardon was too busy talking to a Phillies coach to pay attention to the game. While that seems unprofessional, Reardon does have the virtue of not being Angel Hernandez, so he's still cool by me.

My Cup of Coffee with R.A. Dickey
Back in 2005, R.A. Dickey pitched in a college intrasquad scrimmage, and even though at the time he was an ineffective pitcher coming off surgery who had only recently learned the knuckleball, he was still a major leaguer throwing to college kids. And one of those college kids wrote an article yesterday about facing him back then, when Dickey was at about 70%, and had no idea if he could ever pitch in the majors again, and he just flat-out dominated. It seems like major leaguers are very good at baseball. Did anyone tell me that? It seems like someone should have told me that.

The Year in the Eephus
Eephuses! Admittedly, in the article, the plural is given as eephi, but that's just as delightful. However, the promise of the title is impossible to live up to, as no one has thrown a real eephus this year. Several pitchers have thrown very slow curveballs, which is what this article details, but there isn't one true 20-feet-in-the-air-at-40-mph eephus. So we settle, and wait for the day when our lives will be transformed from seeing one of these in MLB. The revolution is coming! Presumably very slowly, and in a parabola.

Pebble Hunting: You Lie!
With the advent of replay, you might think that baseball players would have stopped pretending to have been hit by a pitch when they obviously weren't. But you'd be wrong! Take that, hypothetical you. It turns out that baseballers are incorrigible compulsive liars whose shameful moral turpitude disgraces the community. And we let kids watch this filth!