George Horton learned everything he needed to know about Danny Pulfer when he benched him earlier in the 2011 season.
It was back on March 11, when the Ducks faced off with BYU in the second game of a weekend series. Pulfer, normally a shoo-in when Horton filled out his lineup card, was instead replaced by freshman Aaron Payne.
It was another crushing blow in a season that seemed to be sinking fast for the junior second baseman. He was stuck in a 2-for-22 slump, and as a team, Oregon was struggling to stay above .500. He could have pouted, or shrunk deep into his stocky 5-foot-10 frame as his confidence spiraled away.@@http://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2011/05/oregon_baseball_danny_pulfer_t.html@@
Instead, Pulfer embodied one of Horton’s favorite Vince Lombardi quotes.
“The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back.”
Almost three months after that low point, Pulfer is leading the team with a .352 batting average. He is currently riding an 11-game hitting streak and has become one of the bright spots in the midst of a disappointing Oregon season.@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=205099773@@@@http://www.dailyemerald.com/2011/05/22/oregon-baseball-loses-series-to-washington-state/@@
“He’s had his best year,” Horton said. “He’s leading with the emotional things and making hitting look simple.”
Pulfer’s teammates also took notice of his resilience.
“When he came back, it was unreal how good he was playing,” sophomore third baseman J.J. Altobelli said. “He just kept on going all the rest of the year … he just sparks the whole team, defensively and offensively.”
Danny Pulfer was knocked to his knees, but he bounced right back.
It is what he’s always done.
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Pulfer was three years old when he first picked up a baseball bat. His mother, Cindy, took him out to their backyard in Nebraska and watched as he hit the ball off a tee. They owned just one ball, so each time he made contact Cindy would have to chase it down and place it back on the tee.
Pulfer couldn’t get enough of it.
The family picked up and moved to California when Pulfer was four, and he started playing organized tee ball.
“And then it just took off from there,” he said.
He played Pony League baseball each spring and summer, and by the time he arrived at Marina High School, he was the only freshman varsity player in the entire Sunset League. It was at this point, Pulfer says, that he recognized his special talent.
He joined a travel team as well, and by sophomore year, the coach had asked him to make a list of his favorite schools.
Pulfer didn’t hesitate for a second. He put down teams like Cal State-Fullerton (where Horton coached at the time), USC, UCLA, Texas and LSU.
“The powerhouses of the nation,” Pulfer said.
Pulfer’s father, Jack, laughed when he saw the list.
“Why don’t you put down some realistic schools?” he said.
Pulfer was hurt by the criticism, but it only served as further motivation to prove his father wrong.
“I took that personally,” Pulfer said. “My dad was upset because I had just quit football at sophomore year, and he always wanted me to play football. So he kind of had that grudge, and didn’t think I’d be able to play Division I baseball.”
To a certain extent, Jack Pulfer was right. Danny never received scholarship offers from the big time schools, and he committed to UC-Irvine in the early part of his junior year.
Everything appeared to be lining up until Horton left Cal State-Fullerton during Pulfer’s senior year. Irvine’s head coach, Dave Serrano, took the job at Fullerton, and Pulfer was suddenly left in limbo.
“I was kind of in between a rock and a hard spot,” Pulfer said. “Didn’t have a scholarship anymore; didn’t know what I was going to do.”
Luckily, Serrano did not forget about Pulfer, and offered him a spot on Fullerton’s team. But Horton also became interested and offered him a scholarship at Oregon.
For a kid who had watched Horton’s Fullerton teams countless times growing up, the prospect of playing for the legendary coach was too much to pass up. Pulfer committed to Oregon and never looked back.
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Three years later, Pulfer can look back on a career that has seen steady improvement. He was humbled during a freshman campaign that saw the team go 14-42 while he batted just .240. Oregon’s record improved to 40-24 the next year, and Pulfer himself ended up with an even .300 batting average while scoring a team-high 47 runs.@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=94833&SPID=11401&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=1599993&Q_SEASON=2010@@
The 2011 season has been a bag of mixed emotions. Pulfer managed to pick himself off the mat after a rough start, but the rest of the team struggled to follow suit. At 30-26-1, the Ducks’ playoff hopes are all but vanquished. And yet, Pulfer chooses not to focus on the disappointment.
When he looks back on this year, records and batting averages will not come to mind.
“I’m gonna remember getting up at 6 a.m. every morning and going to work with my brothers,” Pulfer said. “And going to practice in the fall when it’s 30 degrees. I’m going to remember everything about this program that makes a Duck athlete.
“I’m not going to remember the particular stats. It’s going to be what we did as a team and how close we became.”
Whether they were knocked to their knees or bounced back off the mat, the Ducks did it as a team.
That’s enough to make Pulfer happy.