Buster Posey: Work louder than words Young superstar Buster Posey leads the old-fashioned way - the Giants' quiet catcher lets his work do all of the talking

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Buster Posey is a throwback. Not just in his square-jawed leadership, his 1950s haircut and his stoic toughness. But in his polite unwillingness to tear back the curtain on his personality, to reveal his fears and hopes and dreams, to submit to psychoanalysis by sports media.

In interviews he answers questions, reveals little and seems quite eager to have that part of his job completed and return to analyzing film of opposing hitters and resuming the squat.

For sportswriters, Posey makes our job tough. The Giants serve up platefuls of drama in the form of thongs and beards, steroid scandals and anxiety disorders, rousing speeches and wobbly confidence. Posey has not participated in any of those storylines. Even his most gut-wrenching and intensely human narrative - a grisly injury, painful rehabilitation and triumphant comeback - has been strictly business, a matter-of-fact accomplishment. If anyone wants to shade it in deep hues of drama and emotion, Posey is not providing the Crayolas. We're on our own.

But Posey has become the most compelling figure on the team the old-fashioned way.

By the strength of what he does on the field.

This week he entered the national conversation about the best players in the game. It's one thing to compile awards and statistics: Rookie of the Year, winner of the 2012 batting title, presumptive MVP, potential Comeback Player of the Year.

It's another to deliver for your team in the heat of the playoffs in a scene out of "The Natural." A soaring 434-foot grand slam that caromed off the scoreboard at Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park. All that was missing was exploding electrical fireworks into the night sky - hey, it was a day game - as Captain America rounded the bases.

While the blast didn't guarantee Posey's spot in Cooperstown, it captured the attention of the baseball world. Because that's what superstars do: They come up big in the postseason.

We already knew

Around here, where Posey T-shirts and jerseys bloom on almost every back, we didn't need that monster grand slam to understand Posey's impact. As a rookie, he stepped into a leadership role in late May of 2010, taking charge of a dominant pitching staff, hitting cleanup and leading his team to a World Series victory.

Two years later, his teammates are still astonished by what he did at age 23.

"I've never seen any young man come in with the responsibility that he had," Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt said.

Posey's follow-up to the World Series was one of omission. When he was injured in a home plate collision, almost one year after he joined the team as a regular, and was lost for the season, the Giants foundered. Without Posey, they were no longer a postseason team.

This year, he's back. Behind the plate. Leading the team with his bat. Calmly solving all of the Giants' most burning concerns from seven months ago. He was an All-Star (it no longer looks like ballot-stuffing), led the team down the stretch, filled the void - and the batting title - left by Melky Cabrera, and overcame all doubters of his MVP credentials by the end of the regular season.

The only head-scratcher on his otherwise pristine resume is the reluctance of two of the team's five starting pitchers to throw to him. Whatever the unspoken reasons are behind the catching preference of Barry Zito and Tim Lincecum, Manager Bruce Bochy has done a good job of refusing to let them become a public or clubhouse issue. And the guess here is that those reasons have more to do with the quirks of the pitchers than a deficiency in Posey's game.

Changing momentum

Posey said Thursday that Hunter Pence's rousing speeches were the key to the National League Division Series - Pence shook the dust and rust off his flat teammates, verbally slapping them across the face like Cher in "Moonstruck" and shouting "Snap out of it!" That's a great story line, and it's nice to know that Posey appreciates the kind of speech he is unlikely to ever give. But Posey's quiet influence also changed the momentum of the series.

In the critical Game 3, in the bottom of the first, Posey grabbed a wild pitch and threw out Brandon Phillips at third. In a game in which every run was critical, one that wouldn't be decided until a passed ball and error in the 10th, that might have been the difference.

Posey did it again in Game 5, gunning down Jay Bruce at third in the sixth to complete a strikeout-throwout double play to get the Giants out of the inning, a play that Reds manager Dusty Baker said "changed the whole ballgame." Bochy agreed, saying the play "turned things around."

Bochy, an old catcher, leans on his young player.

"He's a leader on this club," Bochy said. "He leads by example. He's a calming influence."

That's all baseball stuff. The quick turn on a 2-2 fastball. The perfect throw to third to get the runner. The calm work on the field.

That's Buster Posey. That's all you need to know.