© Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports
You can’t miss him. A mountain of curly, reddish-brown hair shoots unevenly out the side of his cap and a wild beard covers his face.
He heads toward his locker tucked away in the corner of the clubhouse. As he chats with teammates, there’s an excitement in his voice and expression – his grayish-blue eyes seem to go without blinking for minutes.
When a reporter draws near, that excitement dims, and his slightly hunched, 6-foot-4 frame all but hides the gladiator mask resting in the top shelf of his locker.
“You want to talk to me about me?” he asks.
If you know the Giants, you know there is no one quite like Hunter Pence, the 12-year veteran who grew up in Arlington, Texas.
His swing is unique and incendiary, he runs the bases like he’s ice-skating, and he throws the ball like he’s trying to throw his arm along with it. He’s become a true denizen of San Francisco, enjoying cold brew coffee, traveling on motorized scooters, and working on YouTube videos with his wife, Lexi.
“I love this city; I feel like I fit in,” Pence said. “I definitely don’t think I have a normal personality. I’m a little bit, what’s the word? Eccentric, maybe. It just feels like fate has a funny way of working out and I feel great here and I love it.”
But his distinctive play style and affability are just at the surface of what’s endeared him to the city of San Francisco and the Giants organization.
One thing that nearly everyone around Pence – teammates, coaches, commentators – loves is his authenticity. Ask any player in the Giants clubhouse what they think about Pence and you’ll likely hear a story about his unrelenting passion for the game and the unrivaled care and mentorship he provides for teammates.
“There’s nothing phony about the guy, what you see is what you get,” said Mike Krukow, the longtime Giants broadcaster and player who introduced Pence when he won the 2013 Willie Mac Award. “He’s got one speed and he lives life like he’s had 22 cups of coffee. Gregarious, friendly, ambassador of the game and if he says he’s your friend, he’s your friend. And he will fight for you.”
The only person you won’t hear that from is Pence himself.
“I just don’t love talking about myself,” he says.
It can be easy to mistake his uncomfortability for self-praise as being confrontational, but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a genuine bit of awkwardness – one of those idiosyncrasies that makes Pence who he is.
Ron Wotus, the Giants’ third base coach and previous bench coach, has known Pence well since he arrived from the Philadelphia Phillies in a 2012 trade – with a plane ticket he bought himself so he could try and make it to the game the day he was traded.
“Everybody cares, but he shows it in a different way,” Wotus said. “He really is engaged in his teammates and the game and gives you his best every day. I have the ultimate respect for that.”
Wotus’s favorite Pence memory, and the one that catapulted his status from timely acquisition to fan-favorite and folk legend, is his speech during the 2012 NLDS against the Cincinnati Reds.
The Giants trailed 2-0 in the series and before Game 3, Pence, eyes wide and unblinking, delivered a rallying cry to the team before a comeback series win that spurred a World Series-winning postseason.
“It was truly from the heart,” Wotus said. “It wasn’t prepared. It wasn’t fake. It was genuine. And he talked about things that you don’t necessarily talk about. He was talking about the relationships and the friendships and how much he loved being around the guys. Usually, you don’t get that in a motivational speech.”
Since joining the Giants, Pence has been part of two World Series-winning teams and received a five-year, $90 million contract in 2013. But now, in the final year of that contract, he’s having the toughest season of his career.
Pence spent 25 games in the minors while rehabbing a right thumb sprain and for the first time in his career, he has come off the bench (42) in more major-league games than he’s started (37). He’s also had to shift from right field to left and is batting a career-low .217.
But Pence isn’t someone who dwells much on the past.
“You take what you can learn and grow off of it, but I don’t dwell on the past that much,” Pence said. “I’m constantly forging forward.”
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who describes Pence as someone who plays baseball with grace. Off the field, it’s the exact opposite. Few people know this better than manager Bruce Bochy.
“He’s such a pro and he’s handled a different role in such a great way,” Bochy said. “During the game, you’ll see him pacing and going down there and getting some swings in, waiting for a moment when he may pinch-hit. Any way he can help us, he’s ready to take on that role. That’s what makes him special. He’s a great teammate and I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for him to have his role change, but he’s been great about it.”
Grégor Blanco has shared the outfield with Pence on-and-off since 2012, along with the two World Series rings he and Pence both have with the Giants. Blanco played most of this season in the minors after he was sent down in early June so Pence could be recalled.
“Hunter, to me, is just the leader of this team,” Blanco said. “He’s just one of the oldest guys here and everybody respects him. He’s always motivated, always happy. It doesn’t matter how bad we can be, he’s always in a positive way. He has such a strong mind that he can feed that to the whole locker room and it’s amazing.”
Pence’s value is no longer in hitting the 23 home runs a year he’s averaged throughout his career. He’s hit a pinch-hit home run and a walk-off double this year, but more valuable than those energetic boosts on the field has been the way he involves himself with his teammates.
When rookie center fielder Steven Duggar showed up for his first major league camp in Phoenix, Arizona in 2016, Pence was there to mentor him.
“For a guy who’s had so much success in this game, he really kind of took me under his wing from the jump in my first big-league camp two years ago,” Duggar said. “He was always helping me, giving me advice here and there, kind of telling me what to expect. He really has been everything to me. Words to try to describe how he is as a teammate, it doesn’t do it justice.”
In spring training, Pence is the Giants’ unofficial coach of visualization, encouraging players to imagine, with full conviction, what they want to achieve. Chase d’Arnaud said he and Pence envisioned themselves celebrating a championship in Union Square and has saved that mental image as motivation throughout the year.
“He’s the most charismatic teammate that I’ve ever had in my whole life, maybe the most charismatic person that I’ve ever met,” d’Arnaud said. “I swear, if Tony Robbins met him, I think he would end up listening to Hunter, more than Hunter listening to Tony.”
Of course, Pence is actually a scholar of Robbins.
“I don’t necessarily have answers, but I’ve read Tony Robbins,” Pence said. “I listen to Tony Robbins. I think he’s a pretty remarkable fellow.”
Derek Holland might disagree about that first part. When Holland came to the Giants this offseason, he didn’t know what his role would be. After splitting time between starting and relieving, he is now in the midst of his best season (3.56 ERA) since 2013 (3.42 ERA) and has cemented himself as part of the starting rotation. You can guess where he drew inspiration.
“(Pence) is willing to do whatever they ask of him,” Holland said. “I think that’s kind of helped me too. I came here, I didn’t know if I was going to be a starter and I’ve bounced back and forth as a starter and a reliever. And the way he carried himself, I wanted to make sure I’m doing the same thing, so he’s been a role model. I love having him as a teammate, a friend, a brother.”
Pence says he just tries to “control what you can control.” It’s a statement in line with his pensive mindset. He reads constantly, but not about any subject in particular. The books find him, he says.
It’s that scholarly nature, humility, and a belief in the power of the mind and visualizing success that helps Pence to constantly captivate his teammates.
“I think life is imagination,” Pence said. “Imagine where you want to be, that’s your creation. Everything is perception. Look at many of the great minds and look at what they tell you to do. Einstein was all about imagining. Imagine, imagine, imagine. And if you truly are trying to be the best you can, you can’t dismiss the importance of the mind and imagining.”