The 2018 San Francisco Giants ended their season ingloriously. They lost nine out of their last 10 games, including getting swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the season’s final series. Still, not even bad baseball would rain on the parade of Hunter Pence, who less than half of a decade ago was an All-Star helping the Giants to their second World Series win in three years.
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Rangers manager Chris Woodward was the Dodgers’ third base coach and got the best seat in the house to witness the farewell from the San Francisco fans.
“Last year, we played them at the end of the season and they gave him a standing ovation for the last three games,” Woodward said. “I told him it was pretty cool. As he’s walking off, I’m like, ‘Hey man, congrats. If this has to be it…”
“I’m not done yet!” Pence shot back to Woodward.
Four months later, Pence is trying to win a roster spot on the team where Woodward will make his debut as a manager.
“I think, at this age, it is a privilege to have an opportunity and spot in big league camp,” Pence said. “To get an opportunity to go out and try to improve yourself and bring everything I can. Ultimately, I wouldn’t want it much any other way.”
And make no mistake, Pence brings a lot.
He brings championship experience, having won World Series titles with the Giants in 2012 and 2014. He brings a veteran presence on a roster that is brimming with youth. And perhaps his most valuable asset, something nobody else can match, he brings a unique flare of personality on a team that can use it after losing one of the greatest in baseball history to retirement last fall.
Pence is known around MLB for his goofiness, but he also has the ability to flip the switch when it’s time for business. As far as current Rangers go, think Elvis Andrus. Andrus is going to try to carry the mantle of leadership this season for Texas, something Pence has already proven he has a knack for. He won the Willie Mac Award, an award presented annually to the most inspirational player on the Giants, in his first full season with the team in 2013. Respect for him runs rampant throughout the league and now he gets to bring it all home to where his journey began.
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Pence attended Arlington High School at the turn of the century, less than five miles down the road from the place the Rangers call home, known at that time simply as The Ballpark in Arlington.
“[I’m] excited to be a part of the place I grew up, and idolized and dreamed of playing at the stadium one day,” Pence said. “It really brings back those childhood memories.”
That connection isn’t just limited to childhood either. After graduating from high school, he spent a quick year playing at Texarkana Junior College before returning home to play at the University of Texas at Arlington. During his junior season in 2004, he was teammates and good friends with Ryan Nelson, who is now CEO of USA Prime Baseball, an organization based in the Dallas area, developing young talent.
“Nothing was traditional about what he did, like his swing, his throwing mechanics, the way he caught fly balls,” Nelson said. “But you could just tell that he was in another class than everyone else on the field. I mean, he was so athletic, so fast, he hit the ball so hard. He just looked different than all the rest of us out there at the same time.
“When you would see Hunter hit and then me or Darrell [Preston] or any of the other guys in the lineup, it just wasn’t the same. He was just a lot better than the rest of us.”
With great talent came great confidence; not just limited to his baseball abilities but his overall athletic skills as well. One day in the offseason, as the baseball team was getting ready for offseason conditioning, the UTA track team was outside as well. Before they got going, Pence went up to the track coach and issued a challenge: The outfielder said he could run a 400-meter fast enough to qualify for the track team.
“At the time, we were like, ‘Come on, there’s no way you’re going to run a 400,’” Nelson said. “He hadn’t been practicing or doing anything like that.”
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The baseball strength and conditioning coach decided to make things interesting; if Pence ran a 400m fast enough to qualify for the track team, the entire baseball team would get a day off from conditioning.
The team didn’t run that day.
It’s not like his confidence only shone when the spotlight wasn’t shining. Quite the opposite, actually. On Tuesdays, UTA would face Big 12 competition and see a number of pitchers who were destined for the big stage.
“Some of these guys were unbelievably talented and no matter what, after an at-bat whether he hit a home run or struck out or whatever, he would come back to the dugout and be like, “Oh, we can hit this guy, he’s not that good, believe me. We’re going to be all over this guy’” Nelson said. “The whole time some of us are thinking, ‘Hunter, this guy is throwing 95 miles per hour and struck out the first six guys, like, we’re in trouble.’ It did not matter.”
Pence’s extraordinary abilities extended from the field to the weight room. He was able to do exercises and activities nonchalantly that most players on the team couldn’t even accomplish while struggling. At the same time he was dropping jaws with his athletic abilities and sky-high confidence, Pence was a down-to-earth teammate.
“He was just a special, special talent,” Nelson said. “Unbelievably athletic and very, very good-hearted person. Just a very nice guy.”
Pence was also a gifted ping-pong player, a skill he displayed on outings at a place called Cover All Bases, which is still there on Cooper Street today. Nelson and his roommate would go there with Pence and play intense four-on-four matches. Even there, Pence was different.
“I don’t know if it was the long arms or what, but he was a ping pong guru,” Nelson said.
Pence had charisma, he had talent and he had confidence. Perhaps more than anything else, he was willing to work.
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“His work ethic was off the charts,” Nelson said. “I tell my kids that today that play for me, that he is the single hardest-working person I’ve ever met.”
It wasn’t always the fun things he worked hard at, either. There were times when the team would do conditioning and players would lay on the ground, sucking air. Pence would get up and go run stadiums.
Pence was as an amateur in Arlington, but he carried himself as a professional. In 2004, he was drafted by the Houston Astros and played in their minor-league system for a few years before making his major-league debut in 2007. In what would be a foreshadowing of his professional career, Pence made an instant impact and set off fireworks. His first home run in the majors came a week into his MLB career and was a grand slam.
For nearly the next decade, Pence was a force on the field before injuries slowed him down. After Pence signed with the Rangers, The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee wrote about how, despite the drop in production, Pence still having an opportunity to play baseball was a treat for all:
One of the singular joys of watching baseball over the last decade has been following Hunter Pence. He practices his swing with a scythe-like motion that makes him seem tethered to an invisible tree. He runs with his arms glued to his hips and elbows with a G.I. Joe-like range of motion. He throws like there’s a powerful gravitational field hidden inside his earlobe.
And he does it all with a visible passion and infectious élan for baseball that’s impossible to miss.
Yes, Pence has an unorthodox swing. But even at the age of 35, he’s doing what he can to improve it. He connected with a swing guru this offseason in Doug Latta and spent all offseason working on his mechanics, including six weeks he spent in the Dominican Republic.
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“If you are not looking to improve, baseball is a game that is constantly changing,” Pence said. “There is more science and there is more stuff behind it. If there is a way to get better, I am going to look into it and I’m going to try to make myself better and be the best player I can be.
“This whole new swing idea is a real thing that people have had a lot of success with, so why not go and learn it? Then, I have the option to take either swing if I can learn both.”
Pence recognizes that he isn’t a lock to make the team. There’s no ego or flashing a resume, just putting in the work to put himself in the best situation possible to have a job in April. On top of that, he’s already earning glowing remarks from a number of young talents in the clubhouse as spring training rolls on.
Whether or not Pence makes his hometown team and plays in the stadium he grew up dreaming of is to be determined. What’s not a mystery is that if he does, Rangers baseball will be a little more fun for it.
(Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports)
