![]() ![]() Timmy had his back to the mound, watching the outfield as the 27th out fluttered softly into Gregor Blanco’s mitt. To my knowledge, Tim Lincecum’s first no-hitter in 2013 is the one and only time that a Buster Hug was a sneak attack. You can almost hear him saying, “Let’s go home.” ![]() You can see just how hard they fought - overcoming a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-five series, and a 3-1 deficit in a best-of-seven series, with Bumgarner pitching nearly 70 innings in Game 7 of the World Series on two days of rest - in the way that Posey melts into Bumgarner as if to say that neither has any gas left in the tank. it’s not a coincidence that their teammates gave them a few minutes before turning the celebration into a mosh pit. You can see the specialness of not just their friendship, but of what they accomplished as battery mates. I can no longer find the article, but if memory serves me correctly, Bumgarner said after the game that Posey was his best friend, and that in the moments of their victorious embrace he told his future Hall of Fame teammate that he loved him. While Posey is beloved among nearly all who donned a Giants jersey, Bumgarner was the one player who you felt was truly Posey’s good friend. This feels like the ultimate Buster Hug, the shining beacon of what a Buster Hug really is.Ī team mobbing eventually ensued, but for a few glorious seconds it’s just Posey and Madison Bumgarner, embracing like a soldier seeing their family at the airport in a war movie. This was a 23-year old Posey in his first full season, and it’s one of the few glimpses of the innocence that accompanied him when he was “Buster Posey, Giants Catcher Prospect” and not “BUSTER POSEY, LEGENDARY LEGEND.” He seems so confident, reassured, and smart always aware of what’s going on. I always think of Posey as the Giants (friendly) authority figure. My favorite part of the OG Buster Hug is Posey, only in his rookie season, looking to the bullpen as he ran to the mound, with an expression on his face that seemed to be asking if this was really happening, and if he was allowed to celebrate. It’s more of a chest bump that gets interrupted by Posey and Wilson’s teammates who had the temerity to also want to celebrate a world title. It’s a Buster Hug, to be sure, but it’s not really a hug. It’s not the first Buster Hug, but it certainly feels like the original Buster Hug, even though it might not even classify as a hug. Now, in light of the franchise legend calling it a career, let’s look back at some of those beautiful hugs, in no particular order. There were Buster Hugs that occurred before Buster Hugs existed, and they’re some of the best Buster Hugs. Maybe it came after one of the many no-hitters he caught.Įither way, at some point the term sprang to life, long after the first Buster Hug had been administered. Maybe the term came after the second championship, or perhaps even the third. A hug after winning a division is not exactly breaking news.īut somewhere along the way it became a thing, and Buster Posey, generally stoic face of the San Francisco Giants franchise, became known for his enthusiastic human embraces. And, I suspect, we thought nothing of it. It wasn’t like his first hit, or home run, or perfectly framed strike, or thrown out runner, where we knew it would come, anxiously waited for it, and celebrated its arrival. When Posey stormed the mound after clinching the division in 2010 to attempt a WWE move on Brian Wilson, we didn’t yet have the concept of Buster Hugs. ![]() My thought was this: I realized that there was a certain point where “Buster Hugs” became a thing. So embarrassingly simplistic that I didn’t want to share it with you, but I’d be legally obligated to hand in my “Writes For A Living” badge if I missed an opportunity to show both vulnerability and self-deprecation wrapped in one unassuming package vaguely resembling depression. I had a thought that was embarrassingly simplistic. Folding slowly to make the menial task last longer so I had reason to avoid doing something more productive. I was somberly folding laundry at four in the afternoon like a melancholy twenty-something from a mediocre sitcom. ![]()
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