Giants rookie Madison Bumgarner isn’t exactly Nolan Ryan either, but he delivered a performance as unforgettable as any no-hitter, pitching eight scoreless innings to put the Giants on the cusp of their first Series championship in their 53-year history in San Francisco. They last won a title in 1954, the year Willie Mays made his legendary over-the-head catch against the Cleveland Indians.

“He stole the show,” Huff said of Bumgarner. “He’s fearless.”

One night after pulling back into the Series with a Game 3 victory, the Rangers were strangely punchless against the 21-year-old Bumgarner and closer Brian Wilson, managing only three hits. It was a game in which one big swing made the difference, and it came from Huff, who grew up a huge Rangers fan, listening to games on the radio while his mom worked the seafood and meat counter at the Winn-Dixie.

“As soon as I hit it, I knew I had it,” Huff said. “To come back home and do something like this was certainly a thrill.”

A few years after Aubrey Huff II was killed in December 1983 while trying to wrest a handgun from an enraged Abilene man intent on shooting an apartment manager, Fonda used her credit card for a pitching machine and materials to build a batting cage behind the family’s trailer. The cage helped Aubrey cope with the emptiness of a fatherless upbringing, filling the hours with hundreds of swings. Along the way, he became a pretty good hitter.

“That was my whole goal in life,” Fonda told the Baltimore Sun in 2007. “They were not going to do without just because their dad was killed.”

Said Aubrey: “I told my mom one day that I wanted to be a pro baseball player. I was 8 or 9 years old. She bought me a batting cage on a whim, did it to keep me out of trouble as much as anything. But I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her making that decision.”

The Huffs moved to Fort Worth when Aubrey was 16, and he played baseball and basketball at Brewer High School. A year later, the Rangers took residence in their new ballpark, the one Huff silenced with one swing Sunday night.

“I probably went to 100 games at the old Rangers stadium and here,” he said. “I was at the final game at the old park, when they moved home plate over to the new one. I watched that whole ceremony.”

Huff wasn’t drafted out of high school and attended a junior college on the Texas Panhandle for a year. He gained 25 pounds, developed power and was recruited by high-powered University of Miami. But he was so homesick that after a week he had Fonda travel to Florida to take him home. She made the trip but wouldn’t let him leave. Eventually Huff made friends – among them current Giants teammate Pat Burrell – and set school batting records.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays drafted him and for the last 11 years he carved out a solid if unspectacular career playing with mostly losing teams. A free agent after the 2009 season, he was contemplating retirement in January because nobody offered him a job. Finally the Giants – in desperate need of power – signed him for one year and $3 million.

“It didn’t sound too appealing hitting in that yard,” he said, referring to the large outfield dimensions at AT&T Park. “But I had to jump on it.”

Huff responded with a tremendous season, batting .290 with 26 homers, 86 RBIs and an .891 OPS. A left-handed hitter, he has held down the No. 3 spot in the batting order against right-handed pitchers. And against the Rangers’ Tommy Hunter, he drove the first pitch, an 86 mph cutter, over the right-field fence with Andres Torres on base. The home run gave the Giants a 2-0 lead, which they extended with single runs in the seventh and eighth innings.

In the stands cheering for Aubrey was Fonda, who long ago moved on from the Winn-Dixie. She earned her teaching credential and master’s degree, and after a long teaching career in Texas and Florida now mentors math teachers.

And thanks in large part to her son, anybody can do the math now: The San Francisco Giants need one victory over the next three games to win their first World Series championship.

Father and son time: The presidents Bush deal Game 4's first pitch

ARLINGTON, Texas — George W. Bush came into Sunday's Game 3 of the World Series with a reputation as the best first pitcher in presidential history to uphold.

Mission, uh, accomplished.

With his father George H.W. Bush looking on from just a few feet away, the experienced Republican righthander threw an impressive no-bounce heater to Texas Rangers team president Nolan Ryan behind the plate. While the pitch had nowhere near the emotional impact of Bush's strike during the 2001 World Series after 9/11, it was a big moment for Bush, who used to own the team, and for his family's constituents in the state of Texas.

Bush's pitch was followed by loud chants of U-S-A! U-S-A! from the crowd dressed in red and blue. 

Regardless of your politics, it's hard to disagree that Bush is probably the biggest baseball fan that the Oval Office has ever seen. He loved welcoming World Series teams to the White House, has been a fixture at Rangers Ballpark since leaving office and has even been mentioned as a replacement for Bud Selig when (and if) he stops being commissioner. (Bush has said in the past that he has no interest.)

Also, if you know anything about the Bush family, you know it's no big surprise that he loves the sport. Fox TV cameras caught Barbara Bush looking intense while keeping score early in the game and the best part about Sunday's throw might be that H.W. wore a generic World Series windbreaker instead of any Rangers gear.

The explanation for that wardrobe selection, of couse, is simple.

Both George and Barbara are huge Houston Astros fans.

Bumgarner pitches Giants to brink of Series crown
By BEN WALKER, AP Baseball

Bumgarner, San Francisco’s 21-year-old No. 4 starter, didn’t allow a runner past second base. Brian Wilson finished with a hitless ninth for the Giants’ second shutout of the Series.

Huff hit a two-run homer in the third off loser Tommy Hunter. Andres Torres added an RBI double in the seventh against Darren Oliver, and Posey homered in the eighth off Darren O’Day.

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