THE LITTLE BROTHER was always right on his heels. Nothing unusual about that. The odd thing about the relationship between Hunter Pence and his big brother was that Howie Pence didn't mind, usually waited for him, was happy about it, even.
"We moved around a lot as kids," Howie Pence was saying from his Texas home. "We were born in Fort Worth and then we moved to Denver for a year and then we moved back and then we moved to Arlington. We had to keep starting over and making new friends. But we always had each other. You always had one friend all along."
Friend, mentor, role model, part-time parent and longtime confidant - Howie Pence has navigated his little brother through the many thickets that impede the pursuit of a professional baseball career, sometimes mapping poisonous branches through personal experience.
It was Howie who included a brother almost 4 years his junior in all the games he played with his peers, fueling the kid's competitiveness.
It was Howie who advised his little brother that a better route out of high school might be junior college. Why? Because Howie had done the opposite.
It was Howie who kept the parade of well-intentioned but misguided coaches, scouts and players from altering too much about the swing and throw of his unorthodox kid brother and most important, from eroding the kid's confidence.
"Even now," Hunter Pence was saying recently at his locker. "He's my first call if something's not going right. He knows my swing so well. Sometimes he calls me first."
Most important, perhaps, it was Howie who provided the cautionary tale of all that can go wrong while pursuing this single-minded dream. Hunter Pence became a baseball player because his big brother played baseball, and when Howie became good enough to dream about being a major leaguer one day, Hunter dreamed right along with him.
Sons of an oil-industry man, they were mostly on their own in pursuit of that dream. Howard Pence had moved to Texas from his roots in the Midwest, but when the industry went bust, he scrambled hard to make ends meet. Hunter tells of a time his father bought sunglasses at a good rate in Texas and drove them to New York City to sell. Howie, who confesses that the father for whom he was named "was just so hard on me" as a youngster, nevertheless admires his father and lauds the sacrifices he made for them as an adult.
"He did whatever he could," says Howie, 31. "That's the one thing that I took from my youth. When you're running a business in the slow season and you have to make the rent every month, you have to get creative.
"I think that was an awesome lesson for me. He always found a way."
It left little time for typical father-son stuff, though. Howard's role was figuring out how to finance the dream. His oldest son's role was to find the truest route.
Once touted as a major league pitching prospect with a fastball in the mid-90s, Howie's dream of pitching in the big leagues was derailed the usual way. An elbow injury that required two operations - the second was Tommy John surgery - cost him 2 years of college pitching and probably a chance to be drafted. Signed by the Padres in 2003 after a free-agent tryout, he spent three seasons as a minor leaguer before moving on to the next stage of his life.
"We all have our destiny," Howie says. "I wouldn't say I didn't get a fair shake. I will say that we made mistakes with my career and fixed them with Hunter's. We learned how the process works where I was kind of like the guinea pig. And all the mistakes we made, we corrected them with him. What I've learned is there's no manual on creating professional baseball players . . . or raising children."
Today, Howie Pence is a businessman back in Texas, a husband, a doting father to three young children. As a means to a living, Howie oversees the Hunter Pence Baseball Academy. As a lifelong vocation, he oversees Hunter Pence.
"Howie's always kind of taken me under his wing and been proud of me and kind of coached me and taught me," says Hunter, 28. "Everything about life. We spent so much time together. Having an older brother like that who builds you up and wants to take you to practice and is proud of what you do. Just guided me and was such a great influence my whole life.
"I think everyone has a different path and a different set of circumstances. He was a great player but unfortunately had some injuries and bumps along his road. But a lot of the things he learned as he was going through he taught me."
Howie, 6-5, grew 8 inches over the winter of his freshman year in high school. "I went from point guard to center in the span of one season," he said, adding that it was painful. His hamstrings killed. His back gave out. His shoes fit for about 2 weeks at a time. He had to stop playing for periods of time.
And when Hunter, always one of his grade's smaller kids, had the same thing happen at age 16 - missing a summer of baseball as he grew to 6-4 - Howie was a knowing and understanding sounding board.
At least once, though, Howie's experience worked against advancing little brother. His older brother's arm troubles might have influenced Hunter's decision to continue playing after separating his right shoulder as a high school junior, which led to the quirky throwing motion you see in rightfield today.
"He had a weird throwing motion anyway as a kid," Howie says. "He kind of jerked his head and threw kind of funny. But it wasn't as weird as it is now. It didn't look pretty. But it looked better than it is now, more over the top. He didn't really wait for it to heal all the way. He wanted to keep playing. So he just threw with it hurting and he started throwing like that and it just kind of stuck."
Asked recently if he could now throw over the top, Hunter says, "It's uncomfortable."
It scared away some scouts. Some colleges, too. Despite good grades and a few feelers from 4-year schools, Pence played a season at Texarkana Junior College.
"Because of my experience, we already realized that junior college was better sometimes," said Howie, whose first college stop was Division I Sam Houston State, "because you had a chance to play a lot of baseball."
That in turn provided an opportunity to move on to the University of Texas-Arlington, where Howie had finished his college career. There, his arm slot was altered ever so slightly and he was taught how to play outfield and he continued to hit and hit and hit. Once considered a man with no position, he has emerged as one of the better major league outfielders, with a rocket for an arm.
Says Hunter, "I owe Howie so much for what he did for me."
The debt has been paid, Howie insists. Many times over. "I'm in a unique situation because I get to watch my brother do all these great things," he says. "So I get to see what the dream is. He took me into the clubhouse with him during the All-Star Game. I got to meet all the guys and see all the grind. As much as I love to play, it's time for me to be a dad and support Hunter any way I can. I'm outside of that world now and I don't mind it."
It even works the other way at times. Hunter Pence's Facebook page is filled with photos of Howie's kids. He gushes about what a great father his big brother is, what a great wife he has, what a family. All these years later, after all their trials and tribulations, the dynamic really hasn't changed.
Hunter Pence still wants to be as good as his big brother someday.
"We kind of work off each other," Howie Pence says. "If I'm down, he'll pick me up. If he's down, I'll pick him up. Something happens, my kid gets sick or something, I'll get on the phone and he'll be like, 'Hey, man, you've got a pretty good life.' "
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