KANSAS CITY, Mo. - For most of last season, the San Francisco Giants knew they were going nowhere. They spent the entire second half below .500 and approached the final weekend with one goal: Do not let Hunter Pence leave town without a new contract.
'If he leaves town, who knows what's going to happen?' said Larry Baer, the Giants' chief executive, in the visiting clubhouse after Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday night. 'Then you get caught up in the swirl with all the teams, and you get into the process - you can talk to him, then everybody can talk to him, all 30 teams.'
The Giants might have re-signed Pence as a free agent, but saw no reason to risk it. Acquiring Pence in July 2012 had been a masterstroke for General Manager Brian Sabean, a crucial part of the team's second championship in three years. Both sides wanted the relationship to last.
In one day of negotiating with Pence's agent, before and after a victory over San Diego on the final Friday of the season, the Giants arrived at a deal on the phone in the office of Manager Bruce Bochy: five years, $90 million.
'We hang up and Bochy says, 'Let's have some wine,' ' Baer said. 'So Hunter, who doesn't drink, really, is like, 'I'll have a sip.' So it's 1 o'clock, we've got a day game tomorrow, and we said, 'Hunter, we'll get you a car,' and he says: 'Oh, no. I'm good to go.' And he goes outside the door and he gets on his scooter. It's like, 'Hunter, we just handed you $90 million, and you take a scooter home?' He says: 'Oh, yeah! That's the way I roll, man.' He puts his helmet on and, vroom, off he goes with $90 million in his pocket.'
Baer continued, smiling at the memory: 'But that's him. He's a very cool character to have on the team.'
Like most of the Giants, Pence, the right fielder, complements his quirks with talent. He showed that in Game 1 with a two-run homer to center in the first inning and a double in the fourth. The Giants rolled past the Royals, 7-1, silencing a ballpark that had not hosted a World Series game in 29 years.
Not that Pence noticed the noise, or its absence.
'I say this, and I truly mean it: sometimes in my mind, when I'm playing the game or our team is doing something good, it's like an emptiness,' he said. 'I don't know what's going on around me.
'And a lot of times, my family will get mad at me, because even if I'm watching TV and really watching the show, I won't hear anything that's being said around me. It's just something that I have. It's kind of a blessing and a curse at home. I get people really angry with me - but on the field, it works out good.'
Pence hit .277 with 20 home runs and 74 runs batted in this season, making the All-Star team for the third time. He played in every game, as he has since the Giants stole him from the Philadelphia Phillies at the trading deadline in 2012.
Just a year before, the playoff-bound Phillies had shipped some of their best prospects to Houston for Pence, who quickly won over the fans. He had a catchphrase - 'Good game, let's go eat!' - and became a spokesman for a local bakery. He was chairman of the Junior Phillies Club and a cover model, in old-time baseball garb, for Philadelphia magazine, which hailed him as 'The Next Great Phillie.'
But the Giants dangled a top catching prospect, Tommy Joseph, as the centerpiece to a deal, and the Phillies took the bait. Joseph has stalled in the minors, missing most of last season with a concussion and most of this season with a wrist injury. Pence, 31, has thrived.
'He just loves the game so much,' Bochy said, adding later: 'He's my lowest maintenance player I've ever had. I just put his name in the lineup and leave him alone.'
As a player, the wild-eyed Pence is something of a curiosity, a skilled all-around athlete who somehow does nothing smoothly. He has a frenetic running style, a jittery batting stance, an awkward, choppy swing in the on-deck circle - and the ability to hit almost any pitch.
'When you looked at him from the other side, you were like, 'Just throw it up there,' because you don't ever know what he's thinking,' said Jeremy Affeldt, a Giants reliever. 'You couldn't read him. He's got an unorthodox swing, but you knew if he hit it, it was going to be hit hard somewhere. You just tried to throw it to your best spot and hope he didn't hit it off your forehead.'
With these Giants, of course, skill is only part of the appeal. They are a Bay Area phenomenon, partly because of their distinct personalities.
The Panda (Pablo Sandoval) and the Freak (Tim Lincecum) have been mainstays for all three World Series teams, though Lincecum plays a lesser role now. Catcher Buster Posey is the well-mannered, clean-cut superstar. The rotation has a Southern feel: Madison Bumgarner (from North Carolina), Jake Peavy (Alabama), Tim Hudson (Georgia) and the injured Matt Cain (Tennessee).
Pence is the Reverend - or, as Baer called him, the Evangelist - a true believer who can rouse the team with a dugout speech, as he did in the 2012 playoffs, or pump up the crowd with a wrestler's exhortation, as he has this season.
'When he came to us in 2012, he showed what kind of leadership role he could play on the team,' shortstop Brandon Crawford said. 'Buster may be more of a lead-by-example guy - quieter, he'll talk when he needs to - but Hunter, he's more vocal. He's not afraid to take it up and give us a little rally speech. He's fiery - and he plays like his hair's on fire.'
Pence has grown out his hair and beard with the Giants, and praised his teammates for their selfless approach. He credited the front office for embracing different types of people and called the atmosphere in San Francisco magical.
The team and the player fit together from the start, with a bond worth preserving.
'We have a group of guys that really care, that really love to play the game,' Pence said. 'And it's kind of our motto: to play together, play as a family and love and enjoy every bit of it.'
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