We discussed this briefly during PRODcast 16, and after doing some YouTube spelunking this morning, I think I’ve uncovered the instructional video that Hunter Pence was forced to watch as a child.

According to a source (read: my imagination), Hunter was locked in a shed for the first 14 years of his life with no exposure to the outside world. On his 15th birthday, the door to the shed was opened and Pence’s father, Howard, wheeled in a Betamax player attached to a 17-inch Zenith television. He sat Hunter down in a beanbag chair, handed him twenty packages of Fun Dip, pressed play on the Betamax and said, “Watch this. When the tape ends, rewind it and watch it again. You will do this until I open the door again. Do you understand me?”

Howard furrowed his brow and peered into the recesses of Hunter’s soul.

“THIS IS YOUR DESTINY.”

He slammed the door shut, and Hunter fixed his gaze upon the moving pictures on the television.

A week later, the door opened again. It was Howard. He looked at Hunter, who was gnawing on his rainbow-colored tongue and running in circles around the television.

“The time has come. Are you ready?”

Hunter stopped and fixed his gaze upon his father.

And thus, a wildly fascinating spindly tangle of limbs baseball player was born.