San Francisco Giants Link Dump, 2/19

The Giants' pitchers and catchers reported yesterday. The Dodgers' report today. That's a full day's advantage for the Giants. They're going somewhere this year. I can just feel it.

Lincecum turns to his father again for help
Pitchers and catchers reported yesterday, which is very exciting! I mean, it'll get less exciting in like three days when we realize nothing is happening and start to pine for actual spring training games, which will be fun for a couple weeks, until we realize these games don't matter and we're seeing a lot more of Kelby Tomlinson than Joe Panik, at which point we'll really start getting desperate for actual games, which will be great until the Giants hit their first losing streak, which is when we'll all immediately count them out and start furiously rosterbating, presumably fake trading Casey McGehee en masse because hey, Adam Duvall totally played third in the minors.

But! Before all that happens, we've got Spring Training Optimism Stories to read. The above link contains two, and they were the two biggest stories of the day yesterday. One was about Tim Lincecum going back to his dad for help, and the other was about Hector Sanchez being ready to go. You could get these stories in more than one place. Here's NEW CSN INSIDER Alex Pavlovic on Hector, and here he is again on Tim, and here's a Yahoo story about Tim, and here's Chris Haft on Hector, and this is Carl Steward talking about Tim, and your reward for getting through all that is this very important article about the Trenton Thunder training their bat doggie.

I'm here for you, people. I'm here, covering the most important stories of the day.

Could Alex Gordon have scored in the World Series? Watch our re-enactment of the play
For some reason, Royals fans are still super hung up on that World Series Game 7 loss. It's like, guys, c'mon, you had your fun, and then Madison Bumgarner beat you. Don't get so worked up about it. It's not like Ned Yost gave Jason Vargas the game ball in the sixth inning NOT THAT I STILL THINK ABOUT THAT THANK YOU VERY MUCH SO TOTALLY OVER IT CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU HOW OVER IT I AM. But apparently there's still some debate in Kansas City as to whether Alex Gordon would have scored if he'd been sent home. The Kansas City Star investigated, and it turns out the answer is no.

Well, glad that's been put to rest. If my experience is anything to go on, sports fans are really good at getting over things quickly and then moving WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST CATCH THE DAMN BALL JOSE CRUZ WHY on.

The summer of Bill Murray
The SNL 40 year special was on Friday, and for me, the unquestioned highlight was Bill Murray singing the lost theme song from Jaws. In a spectacular coincidence, this link is also about Bill Murray, just as the previous sentence was. What are the odds?

Frame Jobs
Grantland did a full-on study about pitch framing last week, and even though they are talking about catchers – baseball catchers – they never once mentioned Buster Posey. This is a textbook case of anti-Giants bias. I have never been so offended.