Tight
Updated 3:43 pm, Monday, October 20, 2014
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Tim Hudson had just beaten the Dodgers in May and was holding court in the tiny visiting clubhouse in Los Angeles. The more he talked, the faster the words flew out in that Alabama drawl.
Matt Cain, a Tennessean listening from the next locker, smiled and said, 'Wow, Huddy, you almost went full- NASCAR there.'
In a Giants clubhouse filled with Latin players and others from all parts of the United States, one corner is home to four starting pitchers, all from the South. Cain and Hudson dress alongside Alabaman Jake Peavy. Next to Hudson is Madison Bumgarner, from North Carolina, who will pitch Game1 of the World Series on Tuesday night.
In a city that could not be bluer, baseball-mad fans in San Francisco have embraced pitchers and personalites who come from the reddest of the red states - and vice versa.
Politics? Who cares? The Giants are playing in their third World Series in five seasons, and the Bay Area wants another parade.
Moreover, ballplayers will agree that familiarity and friendship can breed winning, especially among the small fraternity of starting pitchers who, in this case, bonded more quickly because of their shared upbringing, interests and experiences.
That was especially so for Hudson and Peavy, who joined the team this season.
'We have a lot of stuff in common,' said Hudson, the oldest player on the team at 39. 'We're all country boys at heart. We play a kid's game for a living that we love. It's easy to get along with people you have a lot in common with. These guys on each side of me, we're kind of one and the same.'
It's not just those four starters, either. They throw to a catcher, Buster Posey, who was born and raised in Georgia. Posey does not have the Peavy and Hudson drawl, but he said it does emerge when he returns home for the winter.
Starter Ryan Vogelsong grew up and still lives in Pennsylvania, above the Mason-Dixon Line, but disputes the notion that he is the rotation's token Yankee.
'I was born in Charlotte,' he said. 'I lived there till I was 5 years old. We moved when I was in kindergarten, so I'm really not a Yankee.'
Managing them all is Bruce Bochy, an Army brat who was born in France but spent a chunk of his youth in the Carolinas. His mother, Melrose, grew up on a tobacco farm.
Bochy appreciates the Dixie side of his team.
'I like my rednecks,' Bochy said. 'They're a good bunch of guys.'
The South breeds tired cliches about NASCAR-loving, pickup-driving, Walmart-shopping rubes. Most of these players are not even auto-racing fans. Their biggest common interest is football, particularly college football. The national-championship game last season, Auburn against Florida State, is represented whenever Hudson throws to Posey.
Music is a common thread. So is the food. Before every day game, the team chef prepares grits.
Cowboy boots sit in a lot of lockers, too, and are not merely for show. Bumgarner and his wife live and work on a horse-and-cattle ranch in North Carolina. Hudson and Cain own horses.
Vogelsong was not a boot kind of guy until Cain bought him a pair two weeks ago. Now, Vogelsong wears them every day.
He sees more than just geographical ties among the starting pitchers.
'You can talk about the Southern roots all you want,' he said, 'but I think the bond is, we're all fighters. We all have a respect for each other because of how we go about our business and how we play the game.
'You appreciate a guy you know is going out and leaving everything he has on the mound. I feel like we all do that.'
However, Peavy said one cannot overlook the benefits of a shared culture. It has helped him two years in a row.
In 2013, Peavy won a World Series ring with the Red Sox pitching alongside Texans John Lackey and Clay Buchholz, after he was traded to Boston from the Chicago White Sox.
'All from a few-hundred-mile radius in the South,' Peavy said. 'You figure we were all raised the same, you have a lot in common off the field. It's easy to strike up a friendship when that happens.'
Some of the pitchers have done some cliche-busting on their own, embracing San Francisco, a city that is viewed with scorn in much of red-state America.
Cain, who is coming off elbow and ankle surgeries and not pitching in the postseason, owned a house in San Francisco with his wife, Chelsea, until they had children and moved to suburbs during the season. They winter in Arizona.
Hudson fell in love with the Bay Area when he spent his first six major-league seasons with the A's. When he signed a two-year contract to pitch for the Giants last winter, he knew exactly where he wanted to live and rented a place in Cow Hollow.
Hudson spent much of the season living there alone, but once school let out back home in Alabama, his wife and children came to San Francisco for the summer. He said they got as much or more out of the experience than he did.
It's easy, he said, smiling, 'as long as you're open-minded about a lot of things.'
Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: hschulman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hankschulman
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