Never has the exploits of one player on the Houston Astros made us all stand up and notice, bringing to the forefront of our memory banks the immortal words of Jack Buck: “I can’t believe what I just saw!” Well okay, we can’t leave out the days of Mitch Melusky dressing up for the Houston nine, but let’s just leave sleeping profanity barking dogs lie, okay. Any way, Hunter Pence, the multi-talent baseball playing happy go lucky right fielder-slash-gripit’nripit-batsman is good for perhaps one, two, three hundred or so reactions from the faithful SnS crowd. He makes people very happy and very sad usually at different times in a game or series. Sometimes the cheers are aplenty for a sustained amount of time and then the boos are just as consistent for about the same amount of time, all in spurts and all just about what everyone now expects from our hero. But there is one occasion this year when the young man managed to reach new heights of making himself really stand out around here… boy howdy, did he!
So in honor of managing to make the SnS have to come up with new creative ways to voice displeasure (“your killin me Pence, killin me!”) and excitement (“Atta boy ThunderPants!”), we bring you the first ever SnS Freaking Fark contest. We intend to dedicate this contest to all Houston Astros players for some awe inspiring on field play and no doubt with such characters as Lance Berkman running the bases, Valverde taking baseballs off the noggin and Carlos Lee bulldozing teammates, we will. But there is just something special about HunterPence that just begs us to consider renaming this contest the “ThunderPants-no-he-didn’t” contest. Just saying.
So here we go, our first ever Fark contest. Ladies and Gentlemen, we present to you first the play in question with Mr. Pence, as recorded in this here fine site by our very own recap contributor MusicMan:
As far as Astros “hitting” goes, a run was scratched out on singles by Pence and Blum in the second. Berkman and Lee then won the “it’s about time” award by absolutely unloading on Arroyo for back-to-back homeruns, giving the Astros a 3-2 lead in the sixth. Following Lee’s trot, Pence slashed a single into CF. Unfortunately, the Franchise did not realize that he had hit a routine single into CF and blew right past first, resulting in the look on his face at left.
Sorry about that… I meant, the following look on his face:
We can’t let a classic picture like this just go away this soon, so here we go, the call went out and numerous SnS members answered. The idea was to take the same picture, where Pence is rounding the bases to get easily thrown out by one hundred steps at second base while his teammates look on in horror (none more shocked than first base coach Jose Cruz). Here are the entries
Andyzipp
Pence and Glass Doors
Subnuclear
Pence and Glass Doors, version 2
MikeyBoy
Is that Spiderman in the dugout?
Matt
You know, Pence just maybe was having a panic attack
Lurch
Pitfall Pence
das
Yes. Yes he did!
Noe
Git'er done... git that doggie!
Ty in Tampa
Not sure what changes Ty made to this pic, looks like Pence to me.
Allison
We dare you to figure this one out! We know, but we ain't telling.
Ebby Calvin
Lance fancies himself as a baserunning coach.
Subnucelar
See, someone thinks Lance is just experiencing adult ADD is all.
Trey
Nice reset from a classic 80s movie. Really nice!
Ron Brand
Coach is everywhere!
Allison
"Pence is one cool cat in my book... *meow*"
Ty in Tampa
How do you keep Pence from running? This is one way...
Rueben
... because the typical way doesn't work!
Andyzipp
Baseball IQ? I donn need no steenkin baseball IQ!
Ty in Tampa
This is probably not far off from the real thing uttered by the bench and coach
So there you have it, our nicely done by all our contestants. It will be hard to pick a winner, but a winner we must pick indeed. Tell us what you think and who you want to see win our very first SnS Freaking Fark contest. We’ll consider your opinion ever so slightly in order to make our choice. Until then, take a bow SnS, this was FAN-tastic!