Yasiel Puig, Coast Guard, All-Star Game, etc

The story of Yasiel Puig continues to amaze as we learn more and more back story to the man who has excited Dodgers fans for a month. Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times wrote of Puig's path to the Dodgers once the outfielder arrived in Mexico back in early June, but on Tuesday Jeff Passan at Yahoo! Sports has an amazing story of one of Puig's escape attempts from Cuba getting intercepted by the United States Coast Guard.

Passan's story is fascinating, and this paragraph was particularly potent:

Injury and serendipity brought him to Los Angeles, and the All-Star talk isn't far-fetched. Puig is addictive. He washes away all of the flaws in his game with a cocktail of aptitude and panache that plays to the sensibilities of baseball junkies and neophytes alike. Even if June is an aberration, it speaks to the power of one player, the power of a dream realized.

Some other links, non-Marmol edition, for your perusal on Tuesday:

• The All-Star caps are
• Steve Lepore at SB Nation delved into the topic of why baseball ratings are down, though he strayed into crazy talk about adding playoff teams at the end.
• It's international signing day, and Baseball America is keeping track of it all. So far the Dodgers have signed 17-year-old German RHP Sven Schuller.
  
• Grant Brisbee at SB Nation found the last position player to pitch for each team.
• Carlos Gonzalez owns a .573 slugging percentage against curve balls from left-handed pitchers, and Clayton Kershaw, who throws curves roughly 10% to lefties has never thrown a curve ball to Gonzalez, wrote Zachary Levine at Baseball Prospectus ($). Gonzalez is 5-for-23 (.217) against Kershaw with two home runs, with both long balls coming in 2012 ... on a fastball and slider.