(My original lede was Tim Lincecum is a budding superstar — apparently in more ways than one.)

I can’t condone illicit drug use, but we know what the overriding reaction is going to be. Especially in the Bay Area. Lincecum won’t face any disciplinary action from the league, nor would I expect these misdemeanor charges to impact the salary arbitration process. He’ll pay his fine, maybe attend a state-mandated screening of “Reefer Madness” and be sent on his way toward earning multimillions.

No, the real impact of Lincecum’s bust will be felt the first time he pitches on the road — and hears every manner of clever insult from the stands.

“Forget the Ryan Express. Timmy’s on the Pineapple Express.”

“Hey Timmy, just tell ‘em you have glaucoma.”

“Save some hits for the game.”

The embarrassment might be the worst thing to come out of this. I’d be surprised if Lincecum loses any endorsements. And besides, it’s not like this comes as a shock. Lincecum dresses like he’s a cross between Jimbo Jones from “The Simpsons” and Jay from “Clerks.” Maybe he’ll drop all pretenses and start wearing dreads.

Here’s another way to put this in context: A marijuana charge looks so sweetly innocent after more than a decade of vicious controversy over artificial muscle and injected juice. Hash or horse steroids? Most folks will find one far less objectionable than the other.

But today’s news is still a hit to Lincecum’s reputation, no pun intended this time.

Over the past two years, various people have whispered things to me about Lincecum having a little too much fun on the town. I’ve talked to him about it, myself. If it ever presented itself as an issue, if it ever appeared to affect his performance, I’d have pursued it and reported it. But the numbers are pretty clear. It hasn’t. I’ve never seen him hung over before a game, or impaired or restricted in any way while in uniform.

One time, as a rookie in 2007, he overslept and missed a team flight to Cincinnati. And that’s about it.

As they say, though, the appearance of impropriety can be just as damaging. And in light of today’s news, there will be people who question Lincecum’s drive, desire and work ethic.

They’ll also bring up his mysterious disappearance from the 2008 All-Star Game, when he never made it to Yankee Stadium because of dehydration stemming from flu symptoms.

To that, I can only say this: I’ve looked into it. And yes, I know he had at least a couple of drinks that night. But he also had his father with him and was meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. From everything I’ve gathered, he wasn’t out late.

I can also tell you, having accompanied the team on the road trip prior to that All-Star break, a respiratory virus had been circulating through the clubhouse. Several guys got knocked down pretty hard because of it. I remember slathering myself in hand sanitizer because I knew I’d have to work my tail off in New York and couldn’t afford to get sick.

If it’s all a smokescreen, it’s well played. But I do believe Lincecum really had the flu that night in New York.

Lincecum was stopped just outside Vancouver, Wash, which is just across the Columbia River from the Oregon border. His Mercedes had been clocked at 74 mph, or 14 mph over the limit. In other words, not reckless.

After the officer smelled marijuana, Lincecum produced a pipe from his dashboard console and 3.3 grams of material — an amount police described as roughly a thumb-sized quantity. Because he did not appear intoxicated, the officer cited Lincecum and released him. He will be arraigned Nov. 23 in Clark County District Court.

This incident is more an embarrassment for Lincecum and the Giants than anything else. I doubt it’ll affect his arbitration proceedings. You can read the news story in the Columbian here and I’m sure the Giants will issue a statement later today.

The only other internal candidate to replace Carney Lansford was organizational hitting coordinator Bob Mariano, who is expected to remain.

Meulens, a native of Curacao, speaks five languages — English, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch and the local dialect, Papiamente. He might need to use all of them to communicate patience to a lineup that drew the fewest walks in the major leagues last season.

In offering Meulens the job, an overriding factor had to be the progress he made with John Bowker and Eugenio Velez at Fresno.

Meulens went into great detail on the work he did with Bowker, who won a Triple-A batting title and drew as many walks as strikeouts. He said he got Bowker to be more balanced at the plate, wait back on pitches and recognize them better. He also got him to use his top hand more, releasing it later in his swing.

With Velez, Meulens used a batting tee to help him find a routine to work on a consistent swing. I wrote about that in August.

There’ll be more in the newspaper account. But here’s one other anecdote:

Meulens said he was nicknamed “Bam Bam” when he was a teenager in Curacao. Just for fun, he played on a softball team with a bunch of older guys, and because he didn’t want to screw up his swing, he batted left-handed. Well, he hit so many moon shots that they nicknamed him after the club-swinging baby from the “Flintstones.”

He’s been “Bam Bam” ever since. It’s even written on the back of his shoes.

Meulens, a former Yankees top prospect, played parts of five seasons with the club before a stint in Japan. He was credited with helping to turn around John Bowker and Eugenio Velez at Fresno last season.

Lansford had spent two years in the position but wasn’t retained. The Giants averaged the fewest pitches per plate appearance in the majors and also ranked last in walks and on-base percentage.

Justin Miller and Kelvin Pichardo were outrighted to Triple-A, too.

Because Lowry and Miller have the right to refuse the assignments, they’ll become free agents. (Miller and Lowry would’ve been eligible for arbitration. if they weren’t outrighted.) I’d expect the Giants to make an attempt to re-sign Miller, who had a right elbow cleanup after the season. Pretty safe bet that Lowry will look to restart his career elsewhere, though.

The Giants still have plenty on their arbitration plate: Tim Lincecum, Brian Wilson, Jonathan Sanchez, Brandon Medders and Ryan Garko.

In other news, Sabean said he has spoken to each of the Giants’ impending free agents to communicate the team’s intentions. Specifically, Juan Uribe informed them that he plans to test the market.

Conference call in a little more than an hour. Check back for updates.

Here’s coverage of the event. Go nuts, everyone.

Well, here are a couple suggestions for your Saturday. (Who knew Extra Baggs had its own community events section?)

Willie McCovey, Jeff Kent, Lee Smith, Rollie Fingers, Gaylord Perry, Vida Blue, Bert Campaneris, Steve Finley and others will participate in a Legends of Baseball game at San Jose Municipal Stadium. The MLB Players Alumni is behind the event and ticket sales will benefit children’s charities. Pregame festivities begin at 12:30 p.m. and the game is at 2:30 p.m.

The catch: The players will wear and use equipment from 1886. We can only hope everyone shows up with Rollie Fingers mustaches. All I can say is, if the game is anything like this, it’s bound to be a hoot.

Other players who agreed to participate: Brady Anderson, Darrell Evans, Kevin Maas, Blue Moon Odom, Ron Robinson, Reggie Sanders. Tickets are $30. More info here.

Or, if you’d prefer to stay in this millennium, you can wave to Kruk and Kuip from the parade route in Half Moon Bay. They’re the grand marshals for the Pumpkin Festival Parade, which begins at noon on Main St. between Miramontes and Spruce. Admission is free, and I’m guessing you can score some pie rather easily. More info here.

So I knew if he returned my call yesterday following the news he wouldn’t return as the Giants’ hitting coach, he’d offer a richly candid assessment of the decision, the job he tried to do and the talent level with which he worked.

More than anything, I knew he’d speak from the heart.

Well, he didn’t return my call last night, but there was a very good reason. He was burying his father-in-law.

“I’d gotten the call from Boch two hours before the service,” Lansford said. “Heck of a day.”

From his home amid the Oregon pines, Lansford got back to me first thing this morning. And as I expected, he had a lot of emotions upon hearing that he wouldn’t come back. Relief was one. Surprise was not.

You could boil down his thoughts into one statement:

“There’s two things I learned,” he said. “Never take a job for sentimental reasons and never take a hitting coach job with an offensively challenged team.”

I’ll have to pick out a few other quotes for the newspaper account, but in this space, I’ll present Carney in his own words:

“Well, obviously it’s not a shock, not a surprise. The reason we didn’t win is we weren’t good enough offensively. You certainly can’t blame the pitching. I wish I had more offense to work with, but I had what I had. I don’t know what I would’ve done differently. I did not work out. I wish the Giants nothing but the best. All I wanted to do is help them win a world championship. Growing up in the Bay Area, watching the Giants and playing for the A’s, winning a World Series with the A’s, that’s all I wanted to do. It wasn’t for the money. I didn’t need the money.

“Two things I learned: Never take a job for sentimental reasons and never take a hitting coach job with an offensively challenged team. You’re setting yourself up for a no-win. Had I had an offense like the Dodgers or Angels or Red Sox or Rockies or Yankees, and had we underachieved, I’d really take it hard. But I think everybody knew, and we all expected, that we’d be an offensively challenged team. That said, we were able to stay in the wild card hunt until the final week of the season. I’m really proud of that. We kept the fans interested and excited for six months. I believe in my own mind that the team overachieved, and I believe that’s due to the coaching staff and Boch motivating these guys. I really think that’s true.”

“I wish the next guy nothing but the best. I don’t know if they’ve announced the next guy and I don’t care. But the Giants deserve to win a World Series. Their fans deserve it. As a fan of the Giants, I’ll be happy, too.”

“They were looking for a miracle worker. It didn’t happen. I wish with all my heart we had gotten to the postseason. I went to three World Series with the A’s and I tried to teach those guys everything we did to get there. You can’t compare those two teams — there was a ton of talent (in Oakland) — but you try to instill in them the same work ethic and pride. That more than anything is what I tried to relay to the guys.”

“If the Giants felt they needed a fresh voice and somebody might relate to a few hitters better, hey, all the best to ‘em. I’m not going to lose sleep because I’m not the hitting coach of the San Francisco Giants. That’s not going to happen.”

(On expressing frustration with his public comments or body language:)
“I cared. I genuinely cared. If that was a fault of mine, if that’s what cost me my job, then so be it. I can live with that.”

“My only comment on the situational hitting is the first thing I was told when I took the job is it was atrocious. Did we work on that? More than you’ll ever know. They just didn’t get it done. We had meetings, we talked about the thought process, we talked about what pitch to look for. I don’t know if anyone had to move more runners than I did, as much as I had to move Rickey (Henderson) all those years. But going out early and doing it against batting practice? Anybody can do that. It comes down to games, when guys are throwing 95 mph fastballs and curveballs when you don’t know they’re coming. You can emphasize the heck out of it, but at some point you just have to find a way to get it done.

“At some point, guys have to take responsibility for not doing that. That’s one thing I stressed to the guys – Step up and be responsible for yourself. Guys at the big league level, by the time they get there, should know how to do that stuff – move runners, get a guy home from third with less than two outs. If guys are learning that at the big league level, it’s too late. A major league player should not be as poor at it as we were in my two years. Do I take it personally? Of course I do. I know it cost us games. I’m a human being. I’m not a machine. But I’ll sleep good at night knowing I took my best shot.”

“What’s next for me? Well, relax for a couple weeks, clear my head and make a decision about whether I want to coach. Both my sons are pitching now. I’ll go watch my kids. That’s something I’ll always want to do. If that’s the worst thing that happens, I’ve had a pretty good life.”

“I’m not bitter against the Giants, not one bit, and I hope that comes across. I’ll be rooting for them. I was in that coaches’ room for two years after losses and I know how hard those guys work and how much they want to win. So believe me, I’ll be watching and hoping.”