Hunter Pence
April 13, 1983 — Fort Worth, Texas
Hunter Andrew Pence is a retired American Major League Baseball outfielder who became one of the most energetic, unconventional, and beloved players of his generation — celebrated for a unique batting style that baseball purists said should not work, a ferocious hustle that delighted fans everywhere he played, and two World Series rings won with the San Francisco Giants.
Texas Origins and Early Career
Born on April 13, 1983 in Fort Worth, Texas, Pence played college baseball at the University of Texas at Arlington and was drafted by the Houston Astros in the 2004 MLB Draft. He made his major league debut in 2007 and immediately impressed with an aggressive, high-energy style of play — running at top speed on every ball in play, diving for fly balls, colliding with walls with seemingly no concern for personal safety. Opposing pitchers noticed that his peculiar, hitch-filled swing somehow kept producing base hits regardless of pitch location.
Giants Champion
Traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2011 and then to the San Francisco Giants in 2012, Pence became a beloved figure in San Francisco — a city that responded to his character and intensity with fierce affection. A pre-game speech he gave in the 2012 NLCS famously energized the Giants, who rallied from three games down against the Phillies (and later from 3–1 down against the Cardinals) to reach the World Series, which they won. Pence won a second ring with San Francisco in 2014, cementing his status as a Giants icon. He was a four-time All-Star.
Did You Know?
Pence became an internet meme phenomenon, with fan-made signs at Giants games listing increasingly absurd fake accusations: "Hunter Pence eats pizza with a fork," "Hunter Pence sends texts from a landline," and hundreds of other inventions. Rather than being bothered, Pence embraced the joke with evident delight, which only made fans love him more.
Life After Baseball
Pence announced his retirement in 2021 after stints with the Giants, Texas Rangers, and Giants again. He has remained engaged with baseball through coaching and media appearances, and built a following as an enthusiastic gamer and streamer — a second career as a Twitch personality that revealed a personality as enthusiastic about video games as he had been about diving catches in right field. He married model and artist Alexis Cozombolidis in 2016 in a ceremony at AT&T Park in San Francisco.